I got the results from my thesis back a month ago: passed with revisions. It's a result I'm very pleased with. My examiners comments give me lots of food for thought and encourage me to take my thinking further. And while I don't agree with all their suggestions, agreeing is hardly the point of academia.
But when people ask me how I'm celebrating, my response is "I'm not." I thought I'd be thrilled to see the result of 6 years of hard work come to a successful end. But I'm not. For the most part, I feel apathetic.
And that's been really confusing for me. Confusing and stressful. Because as I try to sort out what this apathy is about, I'm faced with that big looming question of "What next?" And that's a question I haven't really had an answer to. Like Jack Sparrow in Dead Man's Chest, my compass doesn't know where to point.
When I made the decision to move to Australia and pursue postgraduate studies 8 years ago, the idea of being an academic thrilled me. I was desperately unhappy with my life; study was an out. It was a way to a better future. And while I thought that better future would involve living the my-work-is-never-done lifestyle of a hotshot academic, a lot has changed for me since then.
During the process of doing my PhD my priorities shifted. Through a lot of hard work I gradually built a life for myself that makes me happy. A life outside of my PhD. And while I wanted to make living my new life my priority, I didn't know how to shift my thinking of what it was I would be getting out of my PhD in the end. So even though the prospect of being an academic hasn't exactly thrilled me for some time now, when people asked me what I want to do post-PhD I still say "Research, through a university."
Because my personal life was not a source of pleasure for me, and because I couldn't really imagine myself wanting something more than I wanted a career that would take me away from the things that made me unhappy, I never gave much thought to other career options. I'd be an academic. I'd work hard and long and travel and my ideas would be interesting and engaging. That's what I thought would constitute a good life. A life where I would be constantly striving on to the next big thing.
As I've said, a lot changed for me. I stopped looking to the future and started living in the present, and I discovered that I like it in the here and now. When I think about it, I used to buy into the idea that life has these trajectories that we go down and if you mean well things just kind of work out. But that's not how the world works. Times are bloody tough out there! I've come to terms with the fact that life is often shit and you just have to deal with it because it doesn't matter who you are or what you've been through, life doesn't owe you a fucking thing. Whatever you want from life, you've got to work smart to get it. And be prepared to roll with the punches when it doesn't work out anyway.
What type of a career I have has become a lot less important to me. Instead, I want to focus on enjoying my life. My career goals have shifted to finding something that will pay me enough to be comfortable while managing my debt load, and flexible enough that I can continue pursuing the various adventures life throws my way. I realise that I'm basically chasing after a unicorn, but I want my life to be a lot more than my job! The problem with academia is, it's a particularly exploitative industry, with the situation growing worse by the minute. I've seen the changes that have occurred over the past 6 years, I do not like where things are heading!
I'm writing this from a farm house in central Queensland, because of that whole prioritising living my life thing and because, if you let it, life takes you on some funny adventures. And while I'm meant to be studiously working away on my thesis revisions, I've mostly been sitting here, letting my anxiety about the future grow into paralysis. So yesterday afternoon I was delighted to go sit in a tractor for a few hours and feel anxious there instead! While scouring Facebook, I came across this article that a friend had posted. And I don't know why, but something in me clicked.
The thing is, I love doing research. I love engaging with theory. I love writing. And I am good at all those things. They bring me happiness and make me feel alive. But I don't want to be in the academic rat race. I think ultimately what I would like to do is work in, or with, the community sector. I like the idea of doing work that has practical, tangible benefits for actual people. I don't really know what this role would actually look like, but I feel like I've got at least a vague sense of a goal of something I can work towards. And I know that it is going to take a lot of work to get myself into the career path that I want. It's not going to happen overnight and I probably will have to make some short term sacrifices with living my life to achieve the long term goal. That's OK though, because my compass knows where to point.
Showing posts with label phd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phd. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Monday, October 28, 2013
The Pleasure of Stillness
The past few months have been pretty chaotic for me. I have been busy with my thesis, busy with work, busy with travel, busy with boys, busy with housemates, busy with housework. Busy with so many things that I have not had time to be still.
But this weekend, almost unexpectedly, I've found myself with nothing pressing to do. And it was lovely! I feel like a human again. And I'm sure that Stressed Out Future Joni will greatly appreciate the freezer full of veggie lasagne she now has!
My thesis is about applying Foucault's theory of ethics of the self to a particular concept: young people's negotiation of their love/sex relationships within the context of 'new media environments'. The lines between my thesis and my personal life - to borrow from that terrible song - are blurred. But unlike that awful song, it's kind of a wonderful thing.
I'll spare you a detailed explanation of the theory (if you wanna know about it, you can read my bloody thesis! Or the 3 volumes of Foucault's The History of Sexuality). Basically, ethics of the self is about developing a particular relationship with yourself. It is about critically engaging with social norms that tell us how to be, and with knowledge that claims to speak the 'truth' about who we are. It is about reflecting on who you are and who you want to be and why. It is about learning to find the boundaries, the limits, of your 'self' and exploring those edges. It is about growing and changing and challenging. But most of all, it is about care. Care for yourself and care for others.
It's been a really beautiful experience for me, doing a PhD on reflexive engagement with the 'self'. Because a PhD is a horrible thing to do, so caring for yourself while doing it is really important! I have learnt so much about myself in this process, and have grown and changed, and am really happy with the person that I have become (though I am not actually happy with my life right now, but, that is a different story).
If you were to read volumes 2 and 3 of The History of Sexuality you would find a rather lengthy explanation of various practices that the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged in as part of their self-crafting. The point of describing these, for Foucault, isn't to give us a 'how to' list, but to show how an active, reflexive engagement with one's 'self' can transform a person into something new. What the actual practices are is of secondary importance; it is what these practices do - what they produce - that matters most.
Finding balance in my life is something that I think I've always struggled with. Doing a PhD has made that struggle a lot harder. There have been times when it has broken me. I have had to stop working on my thesis, in the past, because if I didn't I would lose what little semblance of mental health I still had. I still struggle with finding balance, but I am a lot more aware of what I need to do to care for myself now - to prevent the balance from tipping too far into a place that is dangerous for my well-being.
This has meant learning things about myself and respecting those things. And some of those things have been unexpected. For instance, I've found that while I was working on writing my thesis I required a lot of external stimulation. I needed to maintain an active social life to balance out the intense thinking work I was doing. But as soon as I finished writing my first draft, I didn't want to see anybody! I needed to recharge, and being an introvert, that meant being away from other people.
I have learnt that it is really hard for me to live with other people. I am both more productive and happier when I am living on my own. It's not possible for me to live on my own right now, but this has become a priority for me - to have my own place by the time I turn 32. I'm also happier when I have an animal companion, so, along with my own apartment I will be getting my own cat. Though I'll feel bad about leaving my current feline companion... who spends more time with me than her owner!
Those are big things though, and care of the self can be about really simple things. Like having a weekend to do nothing. Or wearing nail polish. Or alphabetising my DVDs. There are a lot of little things that I have learnt to do to care for myself; I am not going to list them all here. The point is to figure out what those things are for yourself. What makes you happy? What makes you feel better when you're down? The point is to do those things for yourself. Because they are necessary and important! Because what is the point of going through life without enjoyment of it?
But this weekend, almost unexpectedly, I've found myself with nothing pressing to do. And it was lovely! I feel like a human again. And I'm sure that Stressed Out Future Joni will greatly appreciate the freezer full of veggie lasagne she now has!
My thesis is about applying Foucault's theory of ethics of the self to a particular concept: young people's negotiation of their love/sex relationships within the context of 'new media environments'. The lines between my thesis and my personal life - to borrow from that terrible song - are blurred. But unlike that awful song, it's kind of a wonderful thing.
I'll spare you a detailed explanation of the theory (if you wanna know about it, you can read my bloody thesis! Or the 3 volumes of Foucault's The History of Sexuality). Basically, ethics of the self is about developing a particular relationship with yourself. It is about critically engaging with social norms that tell us how to be, and with knowledge that claims to speak the 'truth' about who we are. It is about reflecting on who you are and who you want to be and why. It is about learning to find the boundaries, the limits, of your 'self' and exploring those edges. It is about growing and changing and challenging. But most of all, it is about care. Care for yourself and care for others.
It's been a really beautiful experience for me, doing a PhD on reflexive engagement with the 'self'. Because a PhD is a horrible thing to do, so caring for yourself while doing it is really important! I have learnt so much about myself in this process, and have grown and changed, and am really happy with the person that I have become (though I am not actually happy with my life right now, but, that is a different story).
If you were to read volumes 2 and 3 of The History of Sexuality you would find a rather lengthy explanation of various practices that the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged in as part of their self-crafting. The point of describing these, for Foucault, isn't to give us a 'how to' list, but to show how an active, reflexive engagement with one's 'self' can transform a person into something new. What the actual practices are is of secondary importance; it is what these practices do - what they produce - that matters most.
Finding balance in my life is something that I think I've always struggled with. Doing a PhD has made that struggle a lot harder. There have been times when it has broken me. I have had to stop working on my thesis, in the past, because if I didn't I would lose what little semblance of mental health I still had. I still struggle with finding balance, but I am a lot more aware of what I need to do to care for myself now - to prevent the balance from tipping too far into a place that is dangerous for my well-being.
This has meant learning things about myself and respecting those things. And some of those things have been unexpected. For instance, I've found that while I was working on writing my thesis I required a lot of external stimulation. I needed to maintain an active social life to balance out the intense thinking work I was doing. But as soon as I finished writing my first draft, I didn't want to see anybody! I needed to recharge, and being an introvert, that meant being away from other people.
I have learnt that it is really hard for me to live with other people. I am both more productive and happier when I am living on my own. It's not possible for me to live on my own right now, but this has become a priority for me - to have my own place by the time I turn 32. I'm also happier when I have an animal companion, so, along with my own apartment I will be getting my own cat. Though I'll feel bad about leaving my current feline companion... who spends more time with me than her owner!
Those are big things though, and care of the self can be about really simple things. Like having a weekend to do nothing. Or wearing nail polish. Or alphabetising my DVDs. There are a lot of little things that I have learnt to do to care for myself; I am not going to list them all here. The point is to figure out what those things are for yourself. What makes you happy? What makes you feel better when you're down? The point is to do those things for yourself. Because they are necessary and important! Because what is the point of going through life without enjoyment of it?
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
The Q in Alphabet Soup
Apparently yesterday (or today, depending on your time zone) was International Bisexuality Visibility Day. Personally, I'm not a fan of the term 'bisexual' and I cringe every time it's applied to me. It feels dated and incredibly limiting; 'bi' implies a duality and when it comes to gender and sexuality, there are a helluva lot more than two options! Also, I feel like it's an identity that has been co-opted by this fantasy whereby bisexual ladies (and their nubile friends) are seen as eagerly available to fulfill all your sexual desires.
I don't say this to be dissing on any bisexuals. If that's how you prefer to identify, that's up to you. I'd be interested in having a conversation about why bi, though, given that 'queer' and 'pansexual' are also well established options (though I have an uneasy relationship with pansexual too because I feel like it presents all sexual desire as being on an even field and is therefore quite reductionary of sexual desire).
I identify as queer. Queer is something of a catch-all phrase, though not in the way it is often used! While you can say that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, etc identity is a 'queer' identity, each of these categories are identity categories onto themselves - and contain their own plethora of subcultures and ways of being which may or may not be 'queer'. What I'm trying to say is, these categories are overlapping, yes, but distinct. A lesbian is not necessarily queer. And yes, my eye does start to twitch every time I hear someone using the term queer interchangeably with other identity categories in the rainbow flavoured alphabet soup.
The reason that queer is a catch-all phrase, and why I identify with it so strongly, is because it is about a lot more than who you fuck. Sure, that's a part of it, but you can be staunchly heterosexual and still be queer. Queer is about critically engaging with the politics of gender, sexuality, and relationships. For a start. I'd say it's also about engaging with the politics of class and race, but as a middle class white woman whose academic focus has tended to be on other middle class white people, I'm going to leave that discussion for people who actually know what they're talking about. (Sometimes I feel like it's narcissistic to be so focused on deconstructing myself. But, firstly, it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it! And secondly, the only thing I can really claim to be an expert on is myself.)
So, to clarify, I feel that it is incorrect to identify as 'queer' on the sole basis of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself. Being queer is about challenging 'normativity'. You know, that thing where women and men are supposed to like each other and get married (to each other) and be monogamous and have babies. And that thing where boys and girls look and act in certain ways, and those ways are different from one another. Or, you know, the idea that certain ways of doing or learning or creating are more valid or productive or useful than others.
The reason all this is on my mind as of late is because my life underwent a pretty big change a couple months ago, and it's taken me down a rather unexpected path. My girlfriend and I broke up, and I decided to start seeing men. It's...complicated and I don't fully understand how I went from being adamantly disinterested in men and happily committed to a beautiful woman to falling out of love with said woman and becoming happily uncommitted to some wonderful men. But it happened fast. Or, it didn't. At any rate, the turn around from being devastated about the breakup to being really fucking happy with my life happened incredibly fast.
Have I magically turned straight? No, definitely not. Am I still into women? Yes...no...I don't know. After a 7 year hiatus from men it's just feeling really nice to be in the company of men. This whole thing has left me with more questions than answers, but, for the most part I feel like the answers to the questions I've got are pretty much irrelevant. As long as the answer to the question "Am I happy?" is "Yes." Which it is.
Which is funny, because, for a long time I felt like I couldn't be happy with men. Because 7+ years ago I was really, very unhappy being with men. But... a lot has changed. What I realise now is that it wasn't men, as such, that I was unhappy with, but heteronormativity. The expectation that I would conform to particular ways of being gendered, sexual, and in a relationship did not sit easy for me. Especially in Calgary, which, in case you didn't know, is a very conservative place! Nonconformity isn't exactly encouraged in Calgary.
But, I've spent the better part of past decade gradually developing my queerness and now feel quite comfortable to be myself - in all my normative and non-normative glory - across all my relationships; be they with friends, family, colleagues, lovers, strangers, housemates, or service providers. My relationships with men now are quite different from before. For starters, they occur on my terms or they don't occur at all. I feel quite free, actually. Even more so than when I was just dating women. Because now, other person(s) consenting, I can have whatever kind of relationship I want with whomever I want. My reflections on queering relationships and the problem with monogamy are probably best left for another day though!
I will just say this: I really am happily uncommitted. And I really do feel free. I'm very nearly finished my PhD, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a journey that's going to take me on. It was wonderful to have a partner for a good chunk of this last push to finish my thesis; I will forever be thankful to my ex for the support she gave me in what was a very difficult and trying period of my life. A lot of the happiness I feel now I owe to her - both for being with me and for breaking up with me. I want to be focused on myself now. I want to be able to pursue whatever interesting opportunities come my way in this next phase of my (professional) life, without having to negotiate that with another person. And I'm very thankful that I get to do that.
I don't say this to be dissing on any bisexuals. If that's how you prefer to identify, that's up to you. I'd be interested in having a conversation about why bi, though, given that 'queer' and 'pansexual' are also well established options (though I have an uneasy relationship with pansexual too because I feel like it presents all sexual desire as being on an even field and is therefore quite reductionary of sexual desire).
I identify as queer. Queer is something of a catch-all phrase, though not in the way it is often used! While you can say that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, etc identity is a 'queer' identity, each of these categories are identity categories onto themselves - and contain their own plethora of subcultures and ways of being which may or may not be 'queer'. What I'm trying to say is, these categories are overlapping, yes, but distinct. A lesbian is not necessarily queer. And yes, my eye does start to twitch every time I hear someone using the term queer interchangeably with other identity categories in the rainbow flavoured alphabet soup.
The reason that queer is a catch-all phrase, and why I identify with it so strongly, is because it is about a lot more than who you fuck. Sure, that's a part of it, but you can be staunchly heterosexual and still be queer. Queer is about critically engaging with the politics of gender, sexuality, and relationships. For a start. I'd say it's also about engaging with the politics of class and race, but as a middle class white woman whose academic focus has tended to be on other middle class white people, I'm going to leave that discussion for people who actually know what they're talking about. (Sometimes I feel like it's narcissistic to be so focused on deconstructing myself. But, firstly, it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it! And secondly, the only thing I can really claim to be an expert on is myself.)
So, to clarify, I feel that it is incorrect to identify as 'queer' on the sole basis of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself. Being queer is about challenging 'normativity'. You know, that thing where women and men are supposed to like each other and get married (to each other) and be monogamous and have babies. And that thing where boys and girls look and act in certain ways, and those ways are different from one another. Or, you know, the idea that certain ways of doing or learning or creating are more valid or productive or useful than others.
The reason all this is on my mind as of late is because my life underwent a pretty big change a couple months ago, and it's taken me down a rather unexpected path. My girlfriend and I broke up, and I decided to start seeing men. It's...complicated and I don't fully understand how I went from being adamantly disinterested in men and happily committed to a beautiful woman to falling out of love with said woman and becoming happily uncommitted to some wonderful men. But it happened fast. Or, it didn't. At any rate, the turn around from being devastated about the breakup to being really fucking happy with my life happened incredibly fast.
Have I magically turned straight? No, definitely not. Am I still into women? Yes...no...I don't know. After a 7 year hiatus from men it's just feeling really nice to be in the company of men. This whole thing has left me with more questions than answers, but, for the most part I feel like the answers to the questions I've got are pretty much irrelevant. As long as the answer to the question "Am I happy?" is "Yes." Which it is.
Which is funny, because, for a long time I felt like I couldn't be happy with men. Because 7+ years ago I was really, very unhappy being with men. But... a lot has changed. What I realise now is that it wasn't men, as such, that I was unhappy with, but heteronormativity. The expectation that I would conform to particular ways of being gendered, sexual, and in a relationship did not sit easy for me. Especially in Calgary, which, in case you didn't know, is a very conservative place! Nonconformity isn't exactly encouraged in Calgary.
But, I've spent the better part of past decade gradually developing my queerness and now feel quite comfortable to be myself - in all my normative and non-normative glory - across all my relationships; be they with friends, family, colleagues, lovers, strangers, housemates, or service providers. My relationships with men now are quite different from before. For starters, they occur on my terms or they don't occur at all. I feel quite free, actually. Even more so than when I was just dating women. Because now, other person(s) consenting, I can have whatever kind of relationship I want with whomever I want. My reflections on queering relationships and the problem with monogamy are probably best left for another day though!
I will just say this: I really am happily uncommitted. And I really do feel free. I'm very nearly finished my PhD, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a journey that's going to take me on. It was wonderful to have a partner for a good chunk of this last push to finish my thesis; I will forever be thankful to my ex for the support she gave me in what was a very difficult and trying period of my life. A lot of the happiness I feel now I owe to her - both for being with me and for breaking up with me. I want to be focused on myself now. I want to be able to pursue whatever interesting opportunities come my way in this next phase of my (professional) life, without having to negotiate that with another person. And I'm very thankful that I get to do that.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Life After Thesis
For the past 5 years I've been working on my PhD, which culminates in the writing of an 80,000-100,000 word thesis. A couple of weeks ago I finished writing my thesis. It weighs in (with references and appendices) at just under 92,000 words.
Now, my PhD is by no means complete! The thesis is written, but now my supervisors are reading it and they will give me feedback on what I need to do to improve it. Then I'll do that, send it off to an editor to deal with all the finicky stuff, and submit. Then it gets sent to my examiners who read it and make their comments/suggestions and decide if it passes with major, minor, or no revisions (technically they can say it doesn't pass, but that almost never happens). THEN I have to respond to the comments the examiners make, and once that is satisfactorily completed, I can submit my hard bound thesis to the university and apply to graduate. And then, when I walk across the stage in my funny hat and get my physical degree, you'll all have to call me Dr Joni FOREVER!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
As many of you are aware, the writing of said thesis has left me a tad ... preoccupied. (Other acceptable descriptions include: single-minded, self-centred, miserable, unpleasant company, nonsensical, or bat shit crazy.) It's consumed a lot of my energy, especially in the final pushes to finish it. I haven't had a lot of mental energy to expend upon other things, but, like the Joni Mitchell song says, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." I thought I was leading a pretty balanced life, until I finished writing my thesis! Suddenly, I had all sorts of anxious mental energy and no outlet to pour it into. I was looking around at my life wildly going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!?!?"
Fortunately for me, in a moment of desperation when I thought my thesis would never end I'd booked myself a week long holiday to Sydney. I turned a corner with the writing process a couple days after booking my flights, and having that upcoming holiday spurred me on to get everything finished so I wouldn't have to have the thesisbeast hanging over my head while I was away. The other benefit of this was, after handing off my thesis I had nothing to do but be anxious about everything. So getting out of town for awhile was a good move. If I'd been in Melbourne I probably would have spiraled into a bad state of mental health. Instead, having nothing in particular to do in a city where I wouldn't have anything in particular to do anyways was a great distraction from the newly formed void in my life. I had quite a lovely time roaming the streets of Sydney, sipping their (inferior) coffee in their very cute cafes, reading books about futuristic dystopias (by far my favourite genre).
When I got back to Melbourne though, I had to face the fact that I didn't have much of anything to do with myself. I mean, I have things. I'm about to start a new job, I've got friends to catch up with, I've got my girlfriend, there's revision work I can do on my thesis, as well as writing articles for publication. But I could also just sit in a corner and stare at a wall and drool all over myself. The pressure to produce something is gone.
Another smart move: I made an appointment to see a counsellor once I got back from Sydney. She said a couple of things that really resonated with me: 1) After working so hard for so long on a single project, letting it go is hard to do and involves some grieving. 2) The thesis becomes such a priority that everything else just gets pushed aside. Now that I'm not working on it, all those things I've pushed aside are popping back up and demanding my attention. And they are not necessarily things I want to give attention to!
I've got some issues to work through, and I've got the support to do that. I find that having my experiences validated actually goes a long way towards relieving my anxiety, so I'm feeling much better than I was about a week ago!
It hasn't been all bad, the stuff that's popped up and demanded my attention. In fact, a lot of it has been exciting and fun! For starters, I thought I was making a lot of time for my relationship with Foxy, but now there's just a whole different quality to that time. And that's been amazing! I'm really pumped to be able to catch up with all my friends again, I've just been hesitating because I'm also aware that I still don't actually have any money. Fortunately, this is now a temporary problem.
One of the things I'm really excited about is that I've actually started to pay attention to my physical body again. I've acquired more than a few PhD injuries over the past few years and now I am starting on the path to recovery. I've got a new program at the gym to help my injuries recover, Brunswick Baths has FINALLY reopened their indoor pool (which is good enough, since I've got a shoulder injury that makes swimming in a 50m pool difficult), I'm doing Pilates, Hubby is going to set me up with a personalised yoga program (since a wrist injury has written me off from my former yoga classes), and tomorrow I'm getting a remedial massage to sort out the rather intense muscle cramping in my legs.
I've started making food for myself again too. Food that involves more than carbs, sugar, and cheese. Food that is actually kinda delicious. I'm remembering flavours and creativity, and that cooking can be enjoyable.
I've also started to consider aesthetics again. Towards the end of the writing process, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, or brushed my hair, or put much consideration into what my outfit as a whole looked like (all that mattered was if it felt comfortable to sit at a computer for 12 hours in). I'm remembering makeup and starting to wear it again. I've come to really like the way I look without makeup, but I stopped wearing it because it was just a hassle to not be able to rub my computer-bleary eyes, and because I only ever saw the same 10 people anyways and they didn't care. I've started to take pride in my appearance again and the difference is noticeable! I've made friends with nail polish as a fashion accessory, instead of just as a nail-biting deterrent.
Now that the thesis is not front and centre in my life, I'm starting to focus on myself again, or still, but in a different way! In a way that encompasses others. My life is about to begin a new era, so as I make the transition from 'PhD Candidate' to 'PhD', I am using this time to get back in touch with myself and the things that make me happy. Instead of spinning my wheels and worrying about what will be around the next bend, I am preparing myself to be the best version of myself so that I can meet whatever new found challenges await me head on. And look good doing it!
Now, my PhD is by no means complete! The thesis is written, but now my supervisors are reading it and they will give me feedback on what I need to do to improve it. Then I'll do that, send it off to an editor to deal with all the finicky stuff, and submit. Then it gets sent to my examiners who read it and make their comments/suggestions and decide if it passes with major, minor, or no revisions (technically they can say it doesn't pass, but that almost never happens). THEN I have to respond to the comments the examiners make, and once that is satisfactorily completed, I can submit my hard bound thesis to the university and apply to graduate. And then, when I walk across the stage in my funny hat and get my physical degree, you'll all have to call me Dr Joni FOREVER!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
As many of you are aware, the writing of said thesis has left me a tad ... preoccupied. (Other acceptable descriptions include: single-minded, self-centred, miserable, unpleasant company, nonsensical, or bat shit crazy.) It's consumed a lot of my energy, especially in the final pushes to finish it. I haven't had a lot of mental energy to expend upon other things, but, like the Joni Mitchell song says, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." I thought I was leading a pretty balanced life, until I finished writing my thesis! Suddenly, I had all sorts of anxious mental energy and no outlet to pour it into. I was looking around at my life wildly going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!?!?"
Fortunately for me, in a moment of desperation when I thought my thesis would never end I'd booked myself a week long holiday to Sydney. I turned a corner with the writing process a couple days after booking my flights, and having that upcoming holiday spurred me on to get everything finished so I wouldn't have to have the thesisbeast hanging over my head while I was away. The other benefit of this was, after handing off my thesis I had nothing to do but be anxious about everything. So getting out of town for awhile was a good move. If I'd been in Melbourne I probably would have spiraled into a bad state of mental health. Instead, having nothing in particular to do in a city where I wouldn't have anything in particular to do anyways was a great distraction from the newly formed void in my life. I had quite a lovely time roaming the streets of Sydney, sipping their (inferior) coffee in their very cute cafes, reading books about futuristic dystopias (by far my favourite genre).
When I got back to Melbourne though, I had to face the fact that I didn't have much of anything to do with myself. I mean, I have things. I'm about to start a new job, I've got friends to catch up with, I've got my girlfriend, there's revision work I can do on my thesis, as well as writing articles for publication. But I could also just sit in a corner and stare at a wall and drool all over myself. The pressure to produce something is gone.
Another smart move: I made an appointment to see a counsellor once I got back from Sydney. She said a couple of things that really resonated with me: 1) After working so hard for so long on a single project, letting it go is hard to do and involves some grieving. 2) The thesis becomes such a priority that everything else just gets pushed aside. Now that I'm not working on it, all those things I've pushed aside are popping back up and demanding my attention. And they are not necessarily things I want to give attention to!
I've got some issues to work through, and I've got the support to do that. I find that having my experiences validated actually goes a long way towards relieving my anxiety, so I'm feeling much better than I was about a week ago!
It hasn't been all bad, the stuff that's popped up and demanded my attention. In fact, a lot of it has been exciting and fun! For starters, I thought I was making a lot of time for my relationship with Foxy, but now there's just a whole different quality to that time. And that's been amazing! I'm really pumped to be able to catch up with all my friends again, I've just been hesitating because I'm also aware that I still don't actually have any money. Fortunately, this is now a temporary problem.
One of the things I'm really excited about is that I've actually started to pay attention to my physical body again. I've acquired more than a few PhD injuries over the past few years and now I am starting on the path to recovery. I've got a new program at the gym to help my injuries recover, Brunswick Baths has FINALLY reopened their indoor pool (which is good enough, since I've got a shoulder injury that makes swimming in a 50m pool difficult), I'm doing Pilates, Hubby is going to set me up with a personalised yoga program (since a wrist injury has written me off from my former yoga classes), and tomorrow I'm getting a remedial massage to sort out the rather intense muscle cramping in my legs.
I've started making food for myself again too. Food that involves more than carbs, sugar, and cheese. Food that is actually kinda delicious. I'm remembering flavours and creativity, and that cooking can be enjoyable.
I've also started to consider aesthetics again. Towards the end of the writing process, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, or brushed my hair, or put much consideration into what my outfit as a whole looked like (all that mattered was if it felt comfortable to sit at a computer for 12 hours in). I'm remembering makeup and starting to wear it again. I've come to really like the way I look without makeup, but I stopped wearing it because it was just a hassle to not be able to rub my computer-bleary eyes, and because I only ever saw the same 10 people anyways and they didn't care. I've started to take pride in my appearance again and the difference is noticeable! I've made friends with nail polish as a fashion accessory, instead of just as a nail-biting deterrent.
Now that the thesis is not front and centre in my life, I'm starting to focus on myself again, or still, but in a different way! In a way that encompasses others. My life is about to begin a new era, so as I make the transition from 'PhD Candidate' to 'PhD', I am using this time to get back in touch with myself and the things that make me happy. Instead of spinning my wheels and worrying about what will be around the next bend, I am preparing myself to be the best version of myself so that I can meet whatever new found challenges await me head on. And look good doing it!
Friday, November 9, 2012
Remembering Professor Smith
Earlier this week one of my colleagues at ARCSHS passed away. He had been seriously ill for some time, but his death was still a surprise to us all. Although I wasn't particularly close with Anthony, I've been quite affected by his death - more so than I thought I would be - and I want to take a few moments to reflect upon what he meant to me.
I moved to Australia nearly 5 years ago to do my PhD. I didn't choose Australia for the sun or the beaches, I didn't choose Melbourne for the culture or the shopping. I came here because I wanted to be a part of a truly amazing organisation: The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society. It is because of Anthony Smith that ARCSHS exists.
Anthony and I didn't have a lot to do with each other; I know him more through his interactions with my friends than through my own interactions with him. Although ARCSHS has evolved into a lively, social centre, Anthony was well known for being something of a hermit, hiding out in his office whilst everyone else gathered for cake, only to appear at the last moment to snag a piece and disappear off again. Most of my interactions with him have been passing him as he had a smoke out the front of the building while I made my way into the office. It was a sad realisation when I came in this morning to know I won't be passing him by anymore; him looking away to avoid idle chitchat, me looking away to avoid being called out at rocking up to uni at 11am.
Another thing that Anthony was known for was his rather fearless ability to stand up for what he believed in and tell anyone stupid enough to stand in his way exactly where they could go! While I'd always known that side of him existed, it wasn't until last year when ARCSHS was faced with sever budget and staff cuts (due to the incompetence of people entirely outside of ARCSHS) that I actually saw him in action. For a man who was otherwise so quiet, when he was passionate about something, he sure could roar! I don't think I realised how much he really cared about all of us at ARCSHS until witnessing that showdown! It should come as no surprise that I admire a person who can not only call someone an idiot to their face, but go into painstaking details as to why they are an idiot, all whilst having abuse hurled back at them. I do enjoy the 'head on' approach to confrontation!!
The one professional interaction I did have with Anthony is something I will always remember, as it was a formative experience for me as an academic. I was just a year into my PhD and had to present and defend my research proposal to everyone at ARCSHS. After I'd finished my presentation and the floor was opened up for questions, Anthony came out swinging! It very well might have been the first time I'd ever heard him speak - certainly it was the first time he'd ever spoken to me. He was critical of my research design and although the experience was confrontational, I handled it professionally and took his criticisms as a challenge to push myself to do better. And I've been thankful for his criticisms every day since! Because of him I completely revised my research design and have produced an innovative piece of research that I am very proud of.
ARCSHS is a very supportive, non competitive environment. Although we all work across quite a wide range of fields and projects, we work together to strengthen each other. I've always felt like I can approach anyone here to bounce ideas off of - whether they are engaged with my work or not. And I have enjoyed having others approach me to do the same. We are all very lucky at ARCSHS; this is not the norm for academic environments. Academia involves people working really hard to put together their ideas and knowledge to present to others, for others to engage with critically. Even at its best, this experience can be quite confronting and feel like a personal attack. It's not a field for the faint of heart! Anthony's challenge to my work was the moment that I knew I could hack it as an academic.
Pretty much anyone who has had the opportunity to be a part of ARCSHS will tell you that it is much more than a work place; it's a community. And for many of us, it's family. My first couple of years here, I didn't know many people outside of ARCSHS. My friends and family were a long ways away, but whenever I came into ARCSHS I felt like I was at home. The people here, the culture of the centre, made me feel not like I'd left home, but like I'd come home. None of that would have been possible without Anthony Smith and I will always remember him for that.
Over the years I've slowly managed to coax Anthony in the occasional jovial interaction, as we passed each other in the stairwell, in the kitchen, or in the corridor. And last year I finally got to engage with him one-on-one! We were hosting our Christmas party in Flagstaff Gardens, and this involved transporting rather a lot of food and beverages from our office to the park - a short distance away. Somehow Anthony and I found ourselves co-carting an impressive array of salads over the bumpy terrain of Franklin St, across the chaos of William St, and through the twists and turns of Flagstaff Gardens. I don't remember what we talked about during this at most 5 minute voyage, but I do remember that I relished every moment of getting him to engage in a social situation that called for idle chitchat!
While it is very sad to lose someone who has made such incredible contributions to the fields of sexual health and sexuality studies more broadly, it is a privilege to be able to continue his legacy onwards. Every day I feel honoured and proud to be a part of ARCSHS. My thoughts and sympathies go out to Anthony's partner, family, friends, colleagues, and students.
I moved to Australia nearly 5 years ago to do my PhD. I didn't choose Australia for the sun or the beaches, I didn't choose Melbourne for the culture or the shopping. I came here because I wanted to be a part of a truly amazing organisation: The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society. It is because of Anthony Smith that ARCSHS exists.
Anthony and I didn't have a lot to do with each other; I know him more through his interactions with my friends than through my own interactions with him. Although ARCSHS has evolved into a lively, social centre, Anthony was well known for being something of a hermit, hiding out in his office whilst everyone else gathered for cake, only to appear at the last moment to snag a piece and disappear off again. Most of my interactions with him have been passing him as he had a smoke out the front of the building while I made my way into the office. It was a sad realisation when I came in this morning to know I won't be passing him by anymore; him looking away to avoid idle chitchat, me looking away to avoid being called out at rocking up to uni at 11am.
Another thing that Anthony was known for was his rather fearless ability to stand up for what he believed in and tell anyone stupid enough to stand in his way exactly where they could go! While I'd always known that side of him existed, it wasn't until last year when ARCSHS was faced with sever budget and staff cuts (due to the incompetence of people entirely outside of ARCSHS) that I actually saw him in action. For a man who was otherwise so quiet, when he was passionate about something, he sure could roar! I don't think I realised how much he really cared about all of us at ARCSHS until witnessing that showdown! It should come as no surprise that I admire a person who can not only call someone an idiot to their face, but go into painstaking details as to why they are an idiot, all whilst having abuse hurled back at them. I do enjoy the 'head on' approach to confrontation!!
The one professional interaction I did have with Anthony is something I will always remember, as it was a formative experience for me as an academic. I was just a year into my PhD and had to present and defend my research proposal to everyone at ARCSHS. After I'd finished my presentation and the floor was opened up for questions, Anthony came out swinging! It very well might have been the first time I'd ever heard him speak - certainly it was the first time he'd ever spoken to me. He was critical of my research design and although the experience was confrontational, I handled it professionally and took his criticisms as a challenge to push myself to do better. And I've been thankful for his criticisms every day since! Because of him I completely revised my research design and have produced an innovative piece of research that I am very proud of.
ARCSHS is a very supportive, non competitive environment. Although we all work across quite a wide range of fields and projects, we work together to strengthen each other. I've always felt like I can approach anyone here to bounce ideas off of - whether they are engaged with my work or not. And I have enjoyed having others approach me to do the same. We are all very lucky at ARCSHS; this is not the norm for academic environments. Academia involves people working really hard to put together their ideas and knowledge to present to others, for others to engage with critically. Even at its best, this experience can be quite confronting and feel like a personal attack. It's not a field for the faint of heart! Anthony's challenge to my work was the moment that I knew I could hack it as an academic.
Pretty much anyone who has had the opportunity to be a part of ARCSHS will tell you that it is much more than a work place; it's a community. And for many of us, it's family. My first couple of years here, I didn't know many people outside of ARCSHS. My friends and family were a long ways away, but whenever I came into ARCSHS I felt like I was at home. The people here, the culture of the centre, made me feel not like I'd left home, but like I'd come home. None of that would have been possible without Anthony Smith and I will always remember him for that.
Over the years I've slowly managed to coax Anthony in the occasional jovial interaction, as we passed each other in the stairwell, in the kitchen, or in the corridor. And last year I finally got to engage with him one-on-one! We were hosting our Christmas party in Flagstaff Gardens, and this involved transporting rather a lot of food and beverages from our office to the park - a short distance away. Somehow Anthony and I found ourselves co-carting an impressive array of salads over the bumpy terrain of Franklin St, across the chaos of William St, and through the twists and turns of Flagstaff Gardens. I don't remember what we talked about during this at most 5 minute voyage, but I do remember that I relished every moment of getting him to engage in a social situation that called for idle chitchat!
While it is very sad to lose someone who has made such incredible contributions to the fields of sexual health and sexuality studies more broadly, it is a privilege to be able to continue his legacy onwards. Every day I feel honoured and proud to be a part of ARCSHS. My thoughts and sympathies go out to Anthony's partner, family, friends, colleagues, and students.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
A Decade In Reflection
Hello Readers!
First off, my last blog about slut shaming has gotten a really awesome response, so THANK YOU to everyone who read it and to everyone who has since given me food for thought on the topic. I've been having heaps of really engaging conversations/debates on this topic and readings lots of other blogs and am really excited to continue exploring this issue!!! I've had about a million different thoughts and ideas for blog posts and I look forward to having the time to develop those.
But for now, I'd like to talk about something else: on Friday I am turning 30. I'm actually really excited about this. Maybe because this big life milestone is also lining up with other big life milestones... I've almost finished my thesis! Not only that, but my life has actually become the thing that I've always wanted it to be. I am independent, I lead an interesting life, and I am surrounded by people who love and respect me for who I am - flaws and all. And that's pretty fucking awesome!
I've been reflecting on the past ten years and the strange twists and turns my life has taken, wondering what 20 year old Joni would think if she knew where she'd end up in 10 years time. I doubt she'd ever have thought she'd end up with the dubious (*ahem* self-appointed) title of "Australia's leading expert on how to use social media to be a douche in intimate relationships" but I bet she wouldn't be all that surprised either. I've always wanted to be a cyborg.
The one thing that 20 year old Joni wanted so much for herself was to be a fiercely-independent-world-travelling-trend-setter. I reckon I've done her proud. I was thinking about this recently, what with my big trip back to Canada coming up. In the past 10 years - that is, 120 months - I have only lived in Calgary for 43 months, and a total of 55 months in Canada. I've lived in Ottawa, Amsterdam, and Melbourne. I've travelled to Thailand, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, England, Portugal, Czech Republic, the USA, Peru, and South Korea. I haven't made it back to Africa or Japan, but that just gives me something to do in my 30s.
My 20s weren't all good; I struggled with depression for most of them. But now I have the knowledge and the tools to manage it, and it no longer rules my life. Not only do I know that 'it gets better', I know how to make it better. I'm very thankful to have so many supportive friends who are there for me when I need them. But I'm also very thankful to myself, for all the hard work I've put in to making my life what it is now. I hear people say sometimes "Oh, you're so lucky to have all these opportunities." Well... yeah, some of the things I've gotten to do with my life have been because I'm lucky enough to have rather a lot of social privilege. But I've also taken that privilege and worked really fucking hard to do something productive with it!
It's funny, so many people get freaked out about turning 30, but it just fills me with joy. I feel more youthful now than I think I actually ever have. And that's because I feel free.
When I was younger I felt like there would be all these unpleasant consequences to just being myself and living my life how I wanted to live it... I think a lot of people feel like there is a particular 'script' that they are meant to follow and that bad things will happen if they don't. But you know what? The bad things happen when you try to live a life that you don't want for yourself. Yeah, it can be hard to go against the grain. Yeah, probably a lot of people will want you to justify yourself to them. But really, you've only got to justify your actions to yourself. If you're happy with yourself and how you act towards others, then who cares what anyone else thinks? And if you're not happy, then what are you going to do to change that?
I understand that expression now: "If only I knew what I know now when I was younger..." I don't want to go back in time and sit down and impart younger Joni with this knowledge though. She wouldn't listen anyways; she likes to figure things out for herself. I get that. I think if I could sit down with my younger self and tell her one thing, I'd tell her that I respect her for that. She'd like that. I have a lot of respect for the person that I was, because she made me into the person that I am today. And I really like that person. A lot!
First off, my last blog about slut shaming has gotten a really awesome response, so THANK YOU to everyone who read it and to everyone who has since given me food for thought on the topic. I've been having heaps of really engaging conversations/debates on this topic and readings lots of other blogs and am really excited to continue exploring this issue!!! I've had about a million different thoughts and ideas for blog posts and I look forward to having the time to develop those.
But for now, I'd like to talk about something else: on Friday I am turning 30. I'm actually really excited about this. Maybe because this big life milestone is also lining up with other big life milestones... I've almost finished my thesis! Not only that, but my life has actually become the thing that I've always wanted it to be. I am independent, I lead an interesting life, and I am surrounded by people who love and respect me for who I am - flaws and all. And that's pretty fucking awesome!
I've been reflecting on the past ten years and the strange twists and turns my life has taken, wondering what 20 year old Joni would think if she knew where she'd end up in 10 years time. I doubt she'd ever have thought she'd end up with the dubious (*ahem* self-appointed) title of "Australia's leading expert on how to use social media to be a douche in intimate relationships" but I bet she wouldn't be all that surprised either. I've always wanted to be a cyborg.
The one thing that 20 year old Joni wanted so much for herself was to be a fiercely-independent-world-travelling-trend-setter. I reckon I've done her proud. I was thinking about this recently, what with my big trip back to Canada coming up. In the past 10 years - that is, 120 months - I have only lived in Calgary for 43 months, and a total of 55 months in Canada. I've lived in Ottawa, Amsterdam, and Melbourne. I've travelled to Thailand, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, England, Portugal, Czech Republic, the USA, Peru, and South Korea. I haven't made it back to Africa or Japan, but that just gives me something to do in my 30s.
My 20s weren't all good; I struggled with depression for most of them. But now I have the knowledge and the tools to manage it, and it no longer rules my life. Not only do I know that 'it gets better', I know how to make it better. I'm very thankful to have so many supportive friends who are there for me when I need them. But I'm also very thankful to myself, for all the hard work I've put in to making my life what it is now. I hear people say sometimes "Oh, you're so lucky to have all these opportunities." Well... yeah, some of the things I've gotten to do with my life have been because I'm lucky enough to have rather a lot of social privilege. But I've also taken that privilege and worked really fucking hard to do something productive with it!
It's funny, so many people get freaked out about turning 30, but it just fills me with joy. I feel more youthful now than I think I actually ever have. And that's because I feel free.
When I was younger I felt like there would be all these unpleasant consequences to just being myself and living my life how I wanted to live it... I think a lot of people feel like there is a particular 'script' that they are meant to follow and that bad things will happen if they don't. But you know what? The bad things happen when you try to live a life that you don't want for yourself. Yeah, it can be hard to go against the grain. Yeah, probably a lot of people will want you to justify yourself to them. But really, you've only got to justify your actions to yourself. If you're happy with yourself and how you act towards others, then who cares what anyone else thinks? And if you're not happy, then what are you going to do to change that?
I understand that expression now: "If only I knew what I know now when I was younger..." I don't want to go back in time and sit down and impart younger Joni with this knowledge though. She wouldn't listen anyways; she likes to figure things out for herself. I get that. I think if I could sit down with my younger self and tell her one thing, I'd tell her that I respect her for that. She'd like that. I have a lot of respect for the person that I was, because she made me into the person that I am today. And I really like that person. A lot!
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| crazy thesis eye + orange chocolate mud cake |
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Balance
Recently my Mom was commenting that it's been awhile since I've updated my blog. It has been! And I imagine that my blog posts will continue to be infrequent for the next several months, until I finish my thesis and get to face the real world excitement of unemployment! Yes, times are bum and getting bummer! And while there is a light at the end of the tunnel (dim though it may be) for finishing my thesis, I can't quite make out the light in the 'poverty' tunnel anymore. My days as a starving student may not come to an end when I stop being a student after all. Huzzah!
Yes, money has got me stressed. My scholarship has long run out, soon my tuition fees will start accruing, and budget cuts have meant that on the rare occasion where casual work does pop up at my research centre, there's about 20 post grad students scrambling to do it. Being told to "hurry up and finish" my thesis isn't exactly helpful when I'm worrying about how to pay the next month's rent. All of which is complicated by my being an international student, meaning, I have to pay a fuckload more for everything and have a fuckload fewer resources available to me. I don't regret coming here, at all, but it is a lot harder than I ever expected it to be.
My life at the moment is like a game of Tetris. I'm doing my best to put the pieces together and clear the lines, but they keep coming, faster and faster. Money, uni, work, visas, health, friends, family, lovers... All coming at me in weird angles, forming complex shapes and piling up in debris around me instead of steadily building into coherent lines that are easily cleared from the screen. And like in Tetris, I am taking risks, putting pieces in where they don't necessarily fit in the hopes of creating a line that can be cleared later on. Am I doing a good job of it? I don't know. But I'm still in the game, and that's what counts!
You know what it's like? It's like walking a tight rope while juggling 3 balls, when you don't know how to do either. I walked a tight rope recently...not while juggling, but I did that recently too. At the end of last year I finally decided that I would join up with the Women's Circus. I started the New Women's program in January. It is - without a doubt - the best decision I have made all year!
I was fortunate enough to end up in a class with the most amazingly friendly, supportive and fun women! And not only have I made some awesome new friends, but I've made them while doing the most ridiculously cool stuff! The kinds of stuff that you just don't get to do as an adult. But the best thing about circus is: for two hours every week the stress of the Tetris game goes away. For two hours every week all the complexities and worries are gone, and in their place is fits of giggling, goofing off, learning new skills, and just having fun!
The New Women's program isn't focused on any one circus skill, but covers a wide range of different skills, and involves playing a lot of fun/silly games. Like 'tiggy tag' or 'freeze tag' as we'd call it in Canada, and 'chuck the chook' (I don't know what we'd call that one in Canada, but it involves a rubber chicken). My all time favourite game was one where we were in groups of 4, we lined up single file, hands on the person in front's shoulders, and only the back person was allowed to have her eyes open. It was her job to steer the rest of us in a human locomotive. I liked being one of the people with their eyes closed best. I couldn't stop laughing!! And when I was at the front of our train, I started doing some dance moves that had our conductor in hysterics. Our trainers (who are INCREDIBLE) kept telling us to try and keep it a relatively silent activity...which wasn't exactly happening due to my hyperventilating from laughing too much.
Every week we do something different, and we usually have no idea what we'll be doing until we're already in the class. I like the surprise of each week. It makes me extra reluctant to miss class! And I like that we get to try so many different things: aerials, acrobalance, clowning, stilts, tight rope walking, tumbling, trampolene, juggling, hula hooping... You just never know what's coming next!
Funny story about that: we do a lot of activities that involve being up close and personal with each other. You get used to having someone you've just met touching you in ways people don't normally touch you. So one day, after doing some warm up games stuff, when one of our trainers announced what we were going to be doing next I heard 'group pooping'. Everyone in the class began to cheer and get visibly excited, meanwhile, I had a look of complete horror on my face and was like "Wait, what? We're doing what? Please tell me I did NOT hear that right!!!" And no, I did not hear her right. She said we were doing hula hooping, not group pooping. I was only slightly relieved.
Much to my surprise, I do not enjoy hula hooping! It's awesome to watch people who are good at it do their thing, sure. But I am not one of those people! I am terrible at hula hooping! I just do not understand how my body is meant to move in order to make the hoop not fall to the ground. And it apparently doesn't matter which part of my body I attempt to spin a hula hoop from: it ain't happening! I'm OK with this though. There are many other things that I am good at, and many other things that I am terrible at but that I deeply enjoy anyways. Hula hooping is just not for me. Juggling, on the other hand... I am pretty crap at juggling, but also much to my surprise, it is pretty much my favourite thing to do. Go figure!
Tumbling is another activity that I'm surprised to find myself loving! Up until a few months ago, I had never, in all my life, done a somersault. Even as a kid, I just couldn't figure it out. I could do backwards ones for some reason, but forward rolls alluded me. But then one day we did them at circus. The trainers took us through the process of doing a forward roll step by step and got us onto this wedge mat to make it easier for us. When my turn came to attempt the forward roll I expected to end up heaving over sideways. But, I bent over, bit my bum, and HUZZAH! Over I went, in a relatively straight line! By the end of the class I was doing them on the floor without any assistance. Tumbling is decidedly awesome!
Then there's aerials: things like trapeze, ropes, tissue, and the cloud swing. I struggle with aerials. I don't have the upper body strength to pull myself up onto the equipment, which can be a challenge. But, as I recently found out, it's not really an excuse for not giving it a go anyways! We did a bunch of aerials stuff a few weeks back, when I happened to be in the most foulest of foul moods. I was feeling particularly sensitive about the decline in my fitness - thank you thesis stress for that! - and was determined that I wouldn't be able to get into any of the aerials equipment, and was not particularly interested in trying.
But... no matter how grumpy I was, the group I was working in wasn't giving my bad mood any energy. They hoisted me up onto the equipment anyways! I still wasn't feeling up to the challenge of actually doing anything once I got up there, but, I was pretty damn happy to be there! I probably will be more brave in the future when we do aerials stuff, as just getting up into the equipment - even with a lot of help - was a huge confidence booster!
When I started up with the Women's Circus I thought that I'd be pretty awesome at acrobalance, and particularly at basing. It has proved more challenging than I had anticipated! But also, very rewarding. I've discovered that some of my dodgy bits can make acrobalance quite hard. One of my shoulders is a lot weaker than the other (something I have recently come to suspect is a result of my skiing accident 20 years ago) so holding somebody's weight over my head can be difficult. I've also got an exposed nerve on one of my hips which can make having someone stand on me really painful, though it's totally fine if they're not putting pressure on the nerve. Due to a dodgy knee I have trouble holding my legs straight, which can make leg basing tricky.
I have actually found it easier to be a flyer than a base, though I generally prefer basing to flying. It is mentally challenging to bring myself to let someone much smaller than me base me, thought the women in my class certainly have been perfectly capable of doing so!! It is a bit funny though, trying to step up onto someone teeny tiny, just because there's not a lot of surface area on which to stand. You kinda just have to go for it and trust that they'll let you know if it's not working. I like basing when we do standing poses, or anything where we move around. Last week we did this cat on cat stuff...it was like when you're a kid and someone gives you a pony ride, only the person on top is actually balancing on the base's back. I'd be quite happy to move people around a properly padded surface in this way any time!
There's all sorts of different classes that focus on different skills run by the Women's Circus. When you join, you can't do any other classes until your second term of New Women's - which I'm in now - and while you only have to do two terms of New Women's, you're encouraged to do a full year. There were a few classes I was interested in this term, but I decided not to sign up for any more as I didn't feel I had the money or the time. But you know what? Circus provides me with so much respite from all the other crap in my life that next term - even though I will very likely be back in Canada for part of it - I plan to take a second class. After all, what's a bit of money for a whole lot of happiness?
Yes, money has got me stressed. My scholarship has long run out, soon my tuition fees will start accruing, and budget cuts have meant that on the rare occasion where casual work does pop up at my research centre, there's about 20 post grad students scrambling to do it. Being told to "hurry up and finish" my thesis isn't exactly helpful when I'm worrying about how to pay the next month's rent. All of which is complicated by my being an international student, meaning, I have to pay a fuckload more for everything and have a fuckload fewer resources available to me. I don't regret coming here, at all, but it is a lot harder than I ever expected it to be.
My life at the moment is like a game of Tetris. I'm doing my best to put the pieces together and clear the lines, but they keep coming, faster and faster. Money, uni, work, visas, health, friends, family, lovers... All coming at me in weird angles, forming complex shapes and piling up in debris around me instead of steadily building into coherent lines that are easily cleared from the screen. And like in Tetris, I am taking risks, putting pieces in where they don't necessarily fit in the hopes of creating a line that can be cleared later on. Am I doing a good job of it? I don't know. But I'm still in the game, and that's what counts!
You know what it's like? It's like walking a tight rope while juggling 3 balls, when you don't know how to do either. I walked a tight rope recently...not while juggling, but I did that recently too. At the end of last year I finally decided that I would join up with the Women's Circus. I started the New Women's program in January. It is - without a doubt - the best decision I have made all year!
I was fortunate enough to end up in a class with the most amazingly friendly, supportive and fun women! And not only have I made some awesome new friends, but I've made them while doing the most ridiculously cool stuff! The kinds of stuff that you just don't get to do as an adult. But the best thing about circus is: for two hours every week the stress of the Tetris game goes away. For two hours every week all the complexities and worries are gone, and in their place is fits of giggling, goofing off, learning new skills, and just having fun!
The New Women's program isn't focused on any one circus skill, but covers a wide range of different skills, and involves playing a lot of fun/silly games. Like 'tiggy tag' or 'freeze tag' as we'd call it in Canada, and 'chuck the chook' (I don't know what we'd call that one in Canada, but it involves a rubber chicken). My all time favourite game was one where we were in groups of 4, we lined up single file, hands on the person in front's shoulders, and only the back person was allowed to have her eyes open. It was her job to steer the rest of us in a human locomotive. I liked being one of the people with their eyes closed best. I couldn't stop laughing!! And when I was at the front of our train, I started doing some dance moves that had our conductor in hysterics. Our trainers (who are INCREDIBLE) kept telling us to try and keep it a relatively silent activity...which wasn't exactly happening due to my hyperventilating from laughing too much.
Every week we do something different, and we usually have no idea what we'll be doing until we're already in the class. I like the surprise of each week. It makes me extra reluctant to miss class! And I like that we get to try so many different things: aerials, acrobalance, clowning, stilts, tight rope walking, tumbling, trampolene, juggling, hula hooping... You just never know what's coming next!
Funny story about that: we do a lot of activities that involve being up close and personal with each other. You get used to having someone you've just met touching you in ways people don't normally touch you. So one day, after doing some warm up games stuff, when one of our trainers announced what we were going to be doing next I heard 'group pooping'. Everyone in the class began to cheer and get visibly excited, meanwhile, I had a look of complete horror on my face and was like "Wait, what? We're doing what? Please tell me I did NOT hear that right!!!" And no, I did not hear her right. She said we were doing hula hooping, not group pooping. I was only slightly relieved.
Much to my surprise, I do not enjoy hula hooping! It's awesome to watch people who are good at it do their thing, sure. But I am not one of those people! I am terrible at hula hooping! I just do not understand how my body is meant to move in order to make the hoop not fall to the ground. And it apparently doesn't matter which part of my body I attempt to spin a hula hoop from: it ain't happening! I'm OK with this though. There are many other things that I am good at, and many other things that I am terrible at but that I deeply enjoy anyways. Hula hooping is just not for me. Juggling, on the other hand... I am pretty crap at juggling, but also much to my surprise, it is pretty much my favourite thing to do. Go figure!
Tumbling is another activity that I'm surprised to find myself loving! Up until a few months ago, I had never, in all my life, done a somersault. Even as a kid, I just couldn't figure it out. I could do backwards ones for some reason, but forward rolls alluded me. But then one day we did them at circus. The trainers took us through the process of doing a forward roll step by step and got us onto this wedge mat to make it easier for us. When my turn came to attempt the forward roll I expected to end up heaving over sideways. But, I bent over, bit my bum, and HUZZAH! Over I went, in a relatively straight line! By the end of the class I was doing them on the floor without any assistance. Tumbling is decidedly awesome!
Then there's aerials: things like trapeze, ropes, tissue, and the cloud swing. I struggle with aerials. I don't have the upper body strength to pull myself up onto the equipment, which can be a challenge. But, as I recently found out, it's not really an excuse for not giving it a go anyways! We did a bunch of aerials stuff a few weeks back, when I happened to be in the most foulest of foul moods. I was feeling particularly sensitive about the decline in my fitness - thank you thesis stress for that! - and was determined that I wouldn't be able to get into any of the aerials equipment, and was not particularly interested in trying.
But... no matter how grumpy I was, the group I was working in wasn't giving my bad mood any energy. They hoisted me up onto the equipment anyways! I still wasn't feeling up to the challenge of actually doing anything once I got up there, but, I was pretty damn happy to be there! I probably will be more brave in the future when we do aerials stuff, as just getting up into the equipment - even with a lot of help - was a huge confidence booster!
When I started up with the Women's Circus I thought that I'd be pretty awesome at acrobalance, and particularly at basing. It has proved more challenging than I had anticipated! But also, very rewarding. I've discovered that some of my dodgy bits can make acrobalance quite hard. One of my shoulders is a lot weaker than the other (something I have recently come to suspect is a result of my skiing accident 20 years ago) so holding somebody's weight over my head can be difficult. I've also got an exposed nerve on one of my hips which can make having someone stand on me really painful, though it's totally fine if they're not putting pressure on the nerve. Due to a dodgy knee I have trouble holding my legs straight, which can make leg basing tricky.
I have actually found it easier to be a flyer than a base, though I generally prefer basing to flying. It is mentally challenging to bring myself to let someone much smaller than me base me, thought the women in my class certainly have been perfectly capable of doing so!! It is a bit funny though, trying to step up onto someone teeny tiny, just because there's not a lot of surface area on which to stand. You kinda just have to go for it and trust that they'll let you know if it's not working. I like basing when we do standing poses, or anything where we move around. Last week we did this cat on cat stuff...it was like when you're a kid and someone gives you a pony ride, only the person on top is actually balancing on the base's back. I'd be quite happy to move people around a properly padded surface in this way any time!
There's all sorts of different classes that focus on different skills run by the Women's Circus. When you join, you can't do any other classes until your second term of New Women's - which I'm in now - and while you only have to do two terms of New Women's, you're encouraged to do a full year. There were a few classes I was interested in this term, but I decided not to sign up for any more as I didn't feel I had the money or the time. But you know what? Circus provides me with so much respite from all the other crap in my life that next term - even though I will very likely be back in Canada for part of it - I plan to take a second class. After all, what's a bit of money for a whole lot of happiness?
Monday, February 6, 2012
Midsumma Madness!
Well my lovely queers and heteros, another Midsumma has come to an end. And what a girlwind it was! From spending a week in the mountains with 30+ ladies, to hitting the clubs, to checking out the shows, to pashing some girls, to making new friends, to catching up with old friends, to marching with Pride... It's been a busy month!
First of all: drama camp was AWESOME! I had such a great time and met many, many amazing women. I also got to cook some insanely delicious food and be loved and adored for it. While hanging out in the mountains. I felt like I was being spoilt! I even managed to get some quality work done on my thesis, which, as you'll remember, was the whole point of me going on this trip!
Oh, and the best part: I finally got to make use of my valid Victorian driver's licence and drive someone's car!! It seems that leaving out the whole "I've never driven on the left before" thing is key. I didn't have to drive far, and it was on a small mountain road with very little traffic. I'm so used to traffic moving from the left here now that I thought I'd be fine to drive. But I was not prepared for all the signals and gears and stuff to be on opposite sides!! It was way more disorienting than I had anticipated. BUT, I am an entirely competent driver and we made the trip without issue AND I did a fabulous job parking upon our return. I waited a couple of days before informing the owner of said car that she'd inadvertently popped my driving in Australia cherry. ;)
Like most things I do, I had no idea what I had signed on for. Our days started early and ended late. There were three of us on the kitchen crew, and hubby proved to be not only a great cook but an efficient and organised leader. He planned the meals, I just chopped what I was told to chop, stirred what I was told to stir, set out food and plates and cutlery where I was told to set them out, and grilled some sausage when I was told to grill some sausage! (I seriously hope the sausage was not completely disgusting; turns out I still can't stomach the thought of eating beef.) What I did take charge of was the clean up crews. After every meal I supervised the clean up crews as they did all the actual work of scrubbing up all the mess we'd made in the kitchen throughout the day. I had so much fun with the clean up crews that I actually started applying for work as a dishwasher when I returned to Melbourne. (Alas, a career as a dishwasher does not appear to be in the cards for me: instead I'll be doing some data entry at ARCSHS.)
I didn't know what to expect from the girls, not being from a drama background myself. The vocal warm ups freaked me out, at first, but then I got used to them and even missed the chorus of weird squawking and chanting at 9am when camp was over. The singing I did not miss so much. It took me about 4 days to get the songs out of my head!! But otherwise, I was quite delighted to find that they were all friendly and curious about my thesis (although after having the same conversation for the 20th time I may have started to wish they weren't) and good eaters! We made a lot of food and very little went to waste! I ate like a freggin' king! I mean, being on the kitchen crew, we had to make sure everything was fit to be served...and sometimes we had to check more than once, you know, just to be sure.
Girls Do Gertrude was a double bill of Gertrude Stein plays. The idea was to go away to the mountains for a week of intensive rehearsals, then come back and put the plays on. One group rehearsed downstairs in the lodge, and the other rehearsed in the space beside the kitchen. So we got quite familiar with the goings on of that particular play. With the singing, and the circles... *ahem* The second play, however, was a total mystery to me. Except, every now and then we'd hear these blood curdling screams coming from downstairs. Often the screaming came when we were reaching the breaking point of hearing Ain't We Got Fun yet again, so I wasn't entirely sure if they were related to the play or not! ;) It was actually really cool to see the play come together over the course of the week, and to know that there was this whole other play happening that I'd get to be surprised by when it was all finished.
I went to see the show last weekend, though in a funny twist of events I actually ended up at Northcote Town Hall with a couple of friends to check out another Midsumma event earlier in the week, and ran into the girls after their show. That was quite fun! Anyways, I went to see the show on Saturday and I of course had to get dressed up for it! 1920s style! I just so happened to have the perfect outfit lying around for the occasion. I even broke out the iron for it!
From what I'd seen in the rehearsal week I figured the plays were going to be good, but honestly, they were so much better than I expected! The first one, A Circular Play, was really witty and fun - and the costumes were incredible! I don't really know how to describe it, other than that it gave me a whole new appreciation for the art of acting. And directing! And the difficulty in learning the words to a song! The second play, Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, was amazing! It was a play repeated three times, each time a bit differently, and each time I got something different from it. It had this incredibly fun opening part where the girls were all being little kids playing and their play turns violent. It was dark and twisted, and yes, the screaming was part of the play. I have a new found appreciation for theatre after that week!
There is much more that I could update on, but I don't want to sit at my computer forever. So to do a quick summary: I have reached exciting new depths of poverty. It's been an interesting experience to have so little money to see me through the month. I've agreed to let hubby cut my hair for free, which he did last week...with his beard clippers and some kinda dull scissors. He actually did a rather amazing job, and may possibly be able to turn a small profit on offering niche market lesbian haircuts. I'm also on this exciting new diet called eating what other people give me for free! It is supplemented by another diet called eating food I can get for cheap. The health nut in my cringes at this, but the social scientist in me sees this as an interesting new experiment and is excited to see where it leads. Meanwhile, the student in me says as long as there is money for coffee and beer, I've got nothing to worry about.
I started my classes with the Women's Circus last week. That is quickly shaping up to be the most fun I have ever had, and possibly will ever have, in my life! My trainers are fantabulous, the women in my class are awesome, AND I get to learn cool tricks that involve me looking like I'm ridiculously strong. My guns aren't too shabby, but I'm not quite at llama status yet!
Now that Midsumma is over, I'm under official lock down to get my thesis over and done with! I've only got six more months to go, and a mountain to climb in that time. It can be done, but it ain't gonna be easy! I just have to keep reminding myself that the sooner I get my first draft completed, the sooner I can get the tattoo I've been planning for the past two years! I may barely be able to afford groceries, rent, or electricity, but I'm saving up my pennies for that next tattoo. There's no fucking way I'm completing that draft only to find out I don't actually have the money to afford the ink!!!
Until next time...wish me adventures!
First of all: drama camp was AWESOME! I had such a great time and met many, many amazing women. I also got to cook some insanely delicious food and be loved and adored for it. While hanging out in the mountains. I felt like I was being spoilt! I even managed to get some quality work done on my thesis, which, as you'll remember, was the whole point of me going on this trip!
Oh, and the best part: I finally got to make use of my valid Victorian driver's licence and drive someone's car!! It seems that leaving out the whole "I've never driven on the left before" thing is key. I didn't have to drive far, and it was on a small mountain road with very little traffic. I'm so used to traffic moving from the left here now that I thought I'd be fine to drive. But I was not prepared for all the signals and gears and stuff to be on opposite sides!! It was way more disorienting than I had anticipated. BUT, I am an entirely competent driver and we made the trip without issue AND I did a fabulous job parking upon our return. I waited a couple of days before informing the owner of said car that she'd inadvertently popped my driving in Australia cherry. ;)
Like most things I do, I had no idea what I had signed on for. Our days started early and ended late. There were three of us on the kitchen crew, and hubby proved to be not only a great cook but an efficient and organised leader. He planned the meals, I just chopped what I was told to chop, stirred what I was told to stir, set out food and plates and cutlery where I was told to set them out, and grilled some sausage when I was told to grill some sausage! (I seriously hope the sausage was not completely disgusting; turns out I still can't stomach the thought of eating beef.) What I did take charge of was the clean up crews. After every meal I supervised the clean up crews as they did all the actual work of scrubbing up all the mess we'd made in the kitchen throughout the day. I had so much fun with the clean up crews that I actually started applying for work as a dishwasher when I returned to Melbourne. (Alas, a career as a dishwasher does not appear to be in the cards for me: instead I'll be doing some data entry at ARCSHS.)
I didn't know what to expect from the girls, not being from a drama background myself. The vocal warm ups freaked me out, at first, but then I got used to them and even missed the chorus of weird squawking and chanting at 9am when camp was over. The singing I did not miss so much. It took me about 4 days to get the songs out of my head!! But otherwise, I was quite delighted to find that they were all friendly and curious about my thesis (although after having the same conversation for the 20th time I may have started to wish they weren't) and good eaters! We made a lot of food and very little went to waste! I ate like a freggin' king! I mean, being on the kitchen crew, we had to make sure everything was fit to be served...and sometimes we had to check more than once, you know, just to be sure.
Girls Do Gertrude was a double bill of Gertrude Stein plays. The idea was to go away to the mountains for a week of intensive rehearsals, then come back and put the plays on. One group rehearsed downstairs in the lodge, and the other rehearsed in the space beside the kitchen. So we got quite familiar with the goings on of that particular play. With the singing, and the circles... *ahem* The second play, however, was a total mystery to me. Except, every now and then we'd hear these blood curdling screams coming from downstairs. Often the screaming came when we were reaching the breaking point of hearing Ain't We Got Fun yet again, so I wasn't entirely sure if they were related to the play or not! ;) It was actually really cool to see the play come together over the course of the week, and to know that there was this whole other play happening that I'd get to be surprised by when it was all finished.
I went to see the show last weekend, though in a funny twist of events I actually ended up at Northcote Town Hall with a couple of friends to check out another Midsumma event earlier in the week, and ran into the girls after their show. That was quite fun! Anyways, I went to see the show on Saturday and I of course had to get dressed up for it! 1920s style! I just so happened to have the perfect outfit lying around for the occasion. I even broke out the iron for it!
From what I'd seen in the rehearsal week I figured the plays were going to be good, but honestly, they were so much better than I expected! The first one, A Circular Play, was really witty and fun - and the costumes were incredible! I don't really know how to describe it, other than that it gave me a whole new appreciation for the art of acting. And directing! And the difficulty in learning the words to a song! The second play, Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, was amazing! It was a play repeated three times, each time a bit differently, and each time I got something different from it. It had this incredibly fun opening part where the girls were all being little kids playing and their play turns violent. It was dark and twisted, and yes, the screaming was part of the play. I have a new found appreciation for theatre after that week!
There is much more that I could update on, but I don't want to sit at my computer forever. So to do a quick summary: I have reached exciting new depths of poverty. It's been an interesting experience to have so little money to see me through the month. I've agreed to let hubby cut my hair for free, which he did last week...with his beard clippers and some kinda dull scissors. He actually did a rather amazing job, and may possibly be able to turn a small profit on offering niche market lesbian haircuts. I'm also on this exciting new diet called eating what other people give me for free! It is supplemented by another diet called eating food I can get for cheap. The health nut in my cringes at this, but the social scientist in me sees this as an interesting new experiment and is excited to see where it leads. Meanwhile, the student in me says as long as there is money for coffee and beer, I've got nothing to worry about.
I started my classes with the Women's Circus last week. That is quickly shaping up to be the most fun I have ever had, and possibly will ever have, in my life! My trainers are fantabulous, the women in my class are awesome, AND I get to learn cool tricks that involve me looking like I'm ridiculously strong. My guns aren't too shabby, but I'm not quite at llama status yet!
Now that Midsumma is over, I'm under official lock down to get my thesis over and done with! I've only got six more months to go, and a mountain to climb in that time. It can be done, but it ain't gonna be easy! I just have to keep reminding myself that the sooner I get my first draft completed, the sooner I can get the tattoo I've been planning for the past two years! I may barely be able to afford groceries, rent, or electricity, but I'm saving up my pennies for that next tattoo. There's no fucking way I'm completing that draft only to find out I don't actually have the money to afford the ink!!!
Until next time...wish me adventures!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
You Know You're A Grad Student When...
Last night I had condiments for dinner.
Condiments.
I shit you not.
It wasn't even intentional, it just...happened. And I didn't even realize I was doing it until I broke into some of the more obscure condiments in my cupboard.
Yes, money is tight right now, but it's not that tight. Well, OK, it is. You see, I am not completely out but coming close to being out of groceries and as I'm about to go away to drama camp (I'll get to that) for a week, I'd like to avoid grocery shopping if I can! Last night I was down to the weird odds and ends, and I decided not to break into the nicer stuff because I had chicken in the freezer I could defrost and cook another day. All that left me with was some moldy bread that was getting to the point where I couldn't just keep cutting the moldy bits off, and tortillas. And condiments.
It started off innocently enough. I decided to throw out the moldy bread and make myself a couple of peanut butter and banana tortilla wraps. After which, I was still peckish and only had a couple of tortillas left. Surely I had something I could spread over them? I poked around my cupboard and what did I come up with? Sweet and sour sauce. It wasn't until I plopped the sweet and sour sauce onto the tortilla that the absurdity of what I was doing struck me. And no, it was not delicious. It was weird. And messy. I got sweet and sour sauce on my shirt. After that debacle I figured I must have something better in the fridge. And you know what I had a shitload of in there? Cream cheese. Yeah. I had a tortilla with sweet and sour sauce for dinner last night when I had a perfectly good container of cream cheese sitting in my fridge.
And that, my friends, is what's called thesis brain.
So, drama camp! You know how I've taken to saying yes to all sorts of random things? This would be one of those things. Clearly. Because me and the performing arts...yeah, no. You know what else is a big yeah, no for me? Food services. So guess what I'm doing on drama camp? Oh yeah!
This all came about because of Hubby. I knew about the performing arts stuff, but apparently he's got this whole food services history too. One of his friends is directing a play for Midsumma (Girls Do Gertrude, check it out) and he has been "recruited" to be the chef for their rehearsal week out in the mountains. Now, there's this weird dynamic to my relationship with Hubby where I pretty much do whatever he says. I don't understand it, but there you go. He says run a 10k, I run a 10k. He says come out clubbing, I go out clubbing. He says come out to the mountains and help me cater a drama camp, I go out to the mountains and help him cater a drama camp. It seems the only thing I've said no to was his marriage proposal. Funny side note, that makes him the only man who's marriage proposal I've actually turned down!
So after Carnival on Sunday I'll be off in the mountains with a bunch of performing arts peeps, cooking and possibly doing various other odds and ends jobs. It was suggested that if I play a musical instrument I could be in the show, but I don't think it's the kind of show where they're taking the piss out of themselves so I think my particular musical talents will go unused this time around. I am, however, open to being the Twitter bitch, and will hopefully knock out a few interesting blog entries while I'm there. Oh yeah, and like, write my third data chapter. I do remember this originally being sold to me as a free study vacation...
Condiments.
I shit you not.
It wasn't even intentional, it just...happened. And I didn't even realize I was doing it until I broke into some of the more obscure condiments in my cupboard.
Yes, money is tight right now, but it's not that tight. Well, OK, it is. You see, I am not completely out but coming close to being out of groceries and as I'm about to go away to drama camp (I'll get to that) for a week, I'd like to avoid grocery shopping if I can! Last night I was down to the weird odds and ends, and I decided not to break into the nicer stuff because I had chicken in the freezer I could defrost and cook another day. All that left me with was some moldy bread that was getting to the point where I couldn't just keep cutting the moldy bits off, and tortillas. And condiments.
It started off innocently enough. I decided to throw out the moldy bread and make myself a couple of peanut butter and banana tortilla wraps. After which, I was still peckish and only had a couple of tortillas left. Surely I had something I could spread over them? I poked around my cupboard and what did I come up with? Sweet and sour sauce. It wasn't until I plopped the sweet and sour sauce onto the tortilla that the absurdity of what I was doing struck me. And no, it was not delicious. It was weird. And messy. I got sweet and sour sauce on my shirt. After that debacle I figured I must have something better in the fridge. And you know what I had a shitload of in there? Cream cheese. Yeah. I had a tortilla with sweet and sour sauce for dinner last night when I had a perfectly good container of cream cheese sitting in my fridge.
And that, my friends, is what's called thesis brain.
So, drama camp! You know how I've taken to saying yes to all sorts of random things? This would be one of those things. Clearly. Because me and the performing arts...yeah, no. You know what else is a big yeah, no for me? Food services. So guess what I'm doing on drama camp? Oh yeah!
This all came about because of Hubby. I knew about the performing arts stuff, but apparently he's got this whole food services history too. One of his friends is directing a play for Midsumma (Girls Do Gertrude, check it out) and he has been "recruited" to be the chef for their rehearsal week out in the mountains. Now, there's this weird dynamic to my relationship with Hubby where I pretty much do whatever he says. I don't understand it, but there you go. He says run a 10k, I run a 10k. He says come out clubbing, I go out clubbing. He says come out to the mountains and help me cater a drama camp, I go out to the mountains and help him cater a drama camp. It seems the only thing I've said no to was his marriage proposal. Funny side note, that makes him the only man who's marriage proposal I've actually turned down!
So after Carnival on Sunday I'll be off in the mountains with a bunch of performing arts peeps, cooking and possibly doing various other odds and ends jobs. It was suggested that if I play a musical instrument I could be in the show, but I don't think it's the kind of show where they're taking the piss out of themselves so I think my particular musical talents will go unused this time around. I am, however, open to being the Twitter bitch, and will hopefully knock out a few interesting blog entries while I'm there. Oh yeah, and like, write my third data chapter. I do remember this originally being sold to me as a free study vacation...
Friday, September 30, 2011
Gettin' It Done!
This past week has been pretty awesome, I must say! My new flatmate moved in on Saturday and we're settling in nicely. Especially as she keeps doing my dishes for me!! I feel very spoilt. :) Sunday was all about sun, suprises, and pirates in the park. Monday I ran a new personal best, then went to uni and got a ton of work done. Tuesday I submitted my first completed draft of my first data chapter, or, the first one that I think won't need to be entirely scrapped and rewritten. It felt SOOOOO good to send that off. Better than finishing my theory chapter even, which was surprising.
Wednesday was an impromptu lunch with one of my friends from uni to discuss the very secretive business of this year's Christmas party. I'm very excited for the upcoming shenanigans! Thursday, due to insomnia, I was up really early and managed to get to the pool an hour earlier than normal. I had a really great swim, and since I'd gotten there so early, when I finished my regular 70 laps I decided to take my time and do an extra 10. Yup, that's 80 laps, or 2.4km. Goal achieved!!
And then there's today! I actually managed to sleep last night, so I didn't wake up until after 7am (which is quite the sleep-in for me these days). I decided to risk the path in the park being washed out and went for a run in the park...and again ran a new personal best!! What up! Then my new flatie and I went for breakfast at my favourite Brunswick cafe and I showed her my favourite book store. AND THEN we took Greta out for a spin!!
My third time out on Greta, and I am getting very close to being able to ride a bike! My balance and steering are improving, as is my ability to get my feet on the pedals and start going. And I'm learning how to use my breaks, and am getting the hang of slowing down and stopping. I'm still not quite ready to go on my own, but that's not far off. We even found THE perfect spot to practice: a very flat, paved footpath surrounding a footy field. It won't be long before Greta and I are cruising the streets of Melbourne (or at least of Brunswick)!
I haven't talked about it much on here, but in a mere 10 days I'll be running the 10k leg of the Melbourne Marathon!!! I still haven't actually ran 10km yet... but that's OK. I'd love to be able to run it in under 60 minutes, but I'll be quite happy to finish in under 75. I wouldn't say that I'm ready for the race, but I am willing and able. This week I'll be carbing up and gearing up. I want to get at least a couple more runs in before the big day, along with a swim and a session at the gym (tomorrow, not next weekend! No way I'm running 10km after all those squats!!) Physically, I'm feeling great these days! And super energetic. I work out in the morning, then by the afternoon I feel like going again. So even though I haven't ran 10km yet, I think I'm gonna be just fine on the day! Guess I'll find out soon enough!!
Wednesday was an impromptu lunch with one of my friends from uni to discuss the very secretive business of this year's Christmas party. I'm very excited for the upcoming shenanigans! Thursday, due to insomnia, I was up really early and managed to get to the pool an hour earlier than normal. I had a really great swim, and since I'd gotten there so early, when I finished my regular 70 laps I decided to take my time and do an extra 10. Yup, that's 80 laps, or 2.4km. Goal achieved!!
And then there's today! I actually managed to sleep last night, so I didn't wake up until after 7am (which is quite the sleep-in for me these days). I decided to risk the path in the park being washed out and went for a run in the park...and again ran a new personal best!! What up! Then my new flatie and I went for breakfast at my favourite Brunswick cafe and I showed her my favourite book store. AND THEN we took Greta out for a spin!!
My third time out on Greta, and I am getting very close to being able to ride a bike! My balance and steering are improving, as is my ability to get my feet on the pedals and start going. And I'm learning how to use my breaks, and am getting the hang of slowing down and stopping. I'm still not quite ready to go on my own, but that's not far off. We even found THE perfect spot to practice: a very flat, paved footpath surrounding a footy field. It won't be long before Greta and I are cruising the streets of Melbourne (or at least of Brunswick)!
I haven't talked about it much on here, but in a mere 10 days I'll be running the 10k leg of the Melbourne Marathon!!! I still haven't actually ran 10km yet... but that's OK. I'd love to be able to run it in under 60 minutes, but I'll be quite happy to finish in under 75. I wouldn't say that I'm ready for the race, but I am willing and able. This week I'll be carbing up and gearing up. I want to get at least a couple more runs in before the big day, along with a swim and a session at the gym (tomorrow, not next weekend! No way I'm running 10km after all those squats!!) Physically, I'm feeling great these days! And super energetic. I work out in the morning, then by the afternoon I feel like going again. So even though I haven't ran 10km yet, I think I'm gonna be just fine on the day! Guess I'll find out soon enough!!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Beginning of The End
Don't waste your time fighting the line
State your course and you'll understand
- Jay-Z
I remember last year I was really anxious about turning 28 and what this year would hold in store for me. I knew it was going to be a challenging year, and whether it was obvious or not, this time last year I was really freaking out about how I was going to manage. But looking back at the past year... it kind of blows my mind how much I've changed, how much I've grown, how much I've learnt about myself.
Not too long ago my flatmate and I were reflecting on our lives and how different (read: better) our late 20's have been from our early 20's. Thinking about how 28 has been for me, I had mixed feelings about the year. But as my flatmate said, "I think you'll look back on this year as a time when some really positive changes started to happen in your life."
And it's true! For starters, I've lost 20kg in the past year. I ran my first 5km race, and now I'm training for a 10km race. I finished my data collection, completely lost interest in my PhD, then fell utterly in love with it again and now want to build my future career on the research I am doing now. I've healed my relationships with my parents a lot, and I've gotten to reconnect with my siblings as adults, which is nothing short of awesome! My professional skills are starting to be recognized in the form of gainful employment and mentoring...
It hasn't all been fun times and kicking ass though. I had a very stupid fight with a friend, and while we've reconciled now, I regret that I became the kind of person who would let that happen. One of the things I've realized over the past year is that friendship is something I value very dearly. I get along well with most people, but it's rare to find someone who I can truly call a friend. And while there are some people back in Canada who I feel like I've gotten closer with this past year, I've felt a lot of disconnect with my friends here in Melbourne. And given that I live in Melbourne, that is hardly an ideal situation! Then there are the incredible grey areas... Breaking up with Lady Cop, twice, is hardly my idea of a good time. But then, a lot of good has come out of it. A lot of good, and a lot of change, and according to a psychic we went to, change is always a good thing.
I started this blog with a lyric from my current favourite hip-hop song, Blue Magic. The reason this song resonates so much with me right now is that, like so much of Jay-Z's music, it's about coming out of tough times on top. Jay-Z is an absolute inspiration to me. This is a man who came from a situation where nobody expected him to amount to anything, but he always knew better. His intellect, his insight into the way the world works, and the way he so simply yet cleverly lays it out, it's pure beauty to me. This is a man who has been, and who I am sure continues to be, under estimated. A lot of people who get under estimated get this attitude like they've got something to prove to the world, but not Jay-Z. He knows what he is capable of, he knows how good he is, and he knows the world is never really going to get it. But instead of trying to make the world sit up and take notice, he just goes about living his life, doing his thing, absolutely on his own terms, whether the world notices or not. I find that absolutely admirable. Especially because as he's always known his own worth, he's always managed to have control over his career.
Which brings me back to the lyric I opened with. We all come into the world in a particular context: in a particular moment in history, in a particular socioeconomic status, in a particular family, in a particular part of the world. We can't change those things; we've got to play the cards that we're dealt. How we play them though, is up to us. There's no point trying to fight the things that are outside of our control. We are much better off to accept whatever circumstances we are in and focus on how we're going to work with whatever we've got to make the best of the situation we're in.
I've been thinking a lot as my birthday has approached about what my circumstances are, and what I can do about it. And this is the thing: when Lady Cop and I were together, I was fighting the line; I wasn't focusing on myself and my own abilities, and while I thought I was maneuvering myself onto a better course by relying on someone else, I was actually making things a lot more difficult for myself. What inspires me about Jay-Z is how clearly he manages to stay on his course, even with other people in his life. I mean, Beyonce is a mega-superstar with her own career and life goals and all of that. She is an amazing woman and an amazing catch, and I know a lot of people would think that if she snaps her fingers, he'd better come a-running. But no! It's not like that at all. He knows that she's incredible, but he also knows he's awesome personified too. Being with her doesn't change his course. He's still going to do what's right for him.
I want to be the kind of person that can say "You're awesome, I want to be with you, but this is my life and I am living it this way, whether you're in it or not." This is the biggest lesson I have learnt over the past year, and it's been a hard lesson to learn. Compromise is important in relationships, sure, but it is different from going off course with your own life.
So I'm not fighting the line; I've stated my course, and I understand.
What does that mean for my 29th year? Finishing my PhD is my number one priority. But I have to be realistic: my candidature expires in 6 months, and especially given that I now have to engage in paid work to survive and that I want my PhD to launch my future career, I need more than 6 months to finish. So I have decided to extend my candidature by 6 months, which means taking out student loans and paying tuition. I will submit my thesis before my 30th birthday!!! And while I do still want to continue losing weight, right now I am happy with my body. I like my fitness regime; it's not as hardcore as previous ones, but it's enough to continue improving my fitness and toning my body without having to be obsessive about what I eat, while having the flexibility to allow my PhD to take priority. Having a social life is vital to my well-being, so I am actively making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. For reasons that unfortunately stopped being relevant too late to change anything, my flatmate is moving out and someone new will be coming in (tbd, don't want to jinx it, not talking about it until it's in the past).
Tomorrow is a fresh start. From here on in, I'm running the show.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Tik Tok
The party don't start til I walk in...
Remember sleep? *sigh* I have this vague memory of a time in my life where I could sleep well and truly past 7am. Now I count myself lucky to make it past 6. It's the thesis, mostly. It's going really super well right now, which means that I'm being haunted by university professors and writing phantom chapters in my dreams. Then I wake up and haunt researchers and write varying levels of esoteric notes on my theory. I recently dug myself into quite a hole, then read an article from a sociology professor at the University of Calgary (who's class I almost took but didn't) that is helping me to dig myself out of this hole. This hole digging metaphor is strange.
By the way, I've pretty much gone crazy.
And you know what's a fun thing to do whilst you're teetering on the edge of sanity? Make Big Life Decisions!!! If you think I'm being sarcastic, I'm not. Life is a journey, and when I'm walking that genius/insane line, that's when I tend to decide on something that takes my journey in some new, unexpected direction. It keeps things interesting. I'm a lot more decisive when I'm in this frame of mind, probably because I don't have the head space to over analyze things. I go with my gut a lot more. Perhaps this is why I am pursuing a career in academia, so I can occupy this mental space more often.
It wasn't my thesis that chased away the sleep and had me wide awake by 5:30am today though. Nope. I'm like a kid at Christmas right now. Why? Because today I am buying my very first bike!!!!
Yesterday as I was walking from the tram to the pool (for a glorious swim) I passed a show with a beautiful vintage style bike in the window...and a sign saying "From $199." I raised $200 from my run, and since I didn't end up getting the hair cut I had budgeted for, I've got some extra cash at the moment. So I checked out their website and saw that there's a sale on just this week, and I figured, why not? My flatmate is going to help me pick up the bike later this morning, since I don't actually know how to ride a bike. I'm very excited about the possibilities having a bike will open up for me. Even though, undoubtedly, there is going to be a fair bit of falling, possibly some road rash, and maybe even a few tears.
I think I shall call her Greta...
Sunday, July 24, 2011
FINISH
Oh yeah, look at me go! My official time was 35:08, which I am very proud of! My name was in the paper and everything. That's pretty darn good for someone who decided to start running on a whim 3 weeks prior to the race.
So what's next? Well, to quote Jay-Z it's "on to the next one." I am planning on running the 10k leg of the Melbourne Marathon in October. Even though it starts at 7:30am on a Sunday. (Who does that? Honestly!) I'm using this Couch to 5k app that one of my colleagues informed me about to train. It's good, even though I'm not exactly the demographic it's targeting. I'm using it to build up my speed. It starts off with lots of walking and short bursts of running, so now I'm sprinting around the dog park. In the rain and the cold in the early hours of the morning. I think I'm going to enjoy running a whole lot more come summer!
As for my bike, I've got some money set aside for it, but I'm still going to be saving up my pennies for awhile. A friend of mine offered me the use of her bike, so I went up to hers yesterday to check it out. Unfortunately, as she is rather a lot taller than me, any attempt at stopping would mean getting all too familiar with her bike. It was nice of her to offer though.
I've called this blog FINISH because from here on in, that's what I'm all about! As you probably won't recall (unless you follow my blog religiously, which would be creepy and weird) in exactly one month from today my scholarship - and hence my financial security - ends. Also, in exactly one month from today, I turn 29. So, yay? And I have exactly 7 months from today to hand in my PhD. To all of this, all I can say is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Look, there's not much I can do about it but go with it. I've got a tutoring job this semester, which I am really super excited about, and I've got a bit of extra casual work on the go. As long as the work doesn't dry up, financially I'll be fine (I may even be better off considering I make a helluva lot more working than on a scholarship). The tricky bit is that there are limits on my visa to how many hours I can work, and as I can't study part time the only way to extend my candidature is to suspend my study and leave the country for awhile. And while a trip to the motherland would be quite nice, I have very little desire to spend my Australian summer in a Canadian winter.
So right now it's all about finding a balance between making enough money to survive, spending enough time studying to finish on time, and having enough down time to not go completely insane. I have already started making some changes to my life to prepare for my upcoming leap from the frying pan into the fire. I've got a rough 7 months ahead of me, but hey, I kick all sorts of ass, so there's no reason why I can't kick this challenge's ass too.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Young Joni and Me
When I was young, I couldn't wait to be a grown up. Adulthood seemed like the most awesome thing. As I've made my way into adulthood, I've often looked back at my obsession with getting there with a bit of contempt. "What's so great about being an adult?" I'd say to myself. The grass is always greener, right?
I've been thinking a lot lately about younger versions of myself and what they would think of me now. So when one of my favourite web comic authors (and favourite tweeter) Kate Beaton posted a comic of her having a conversation with a younger version of herself, I felt inspired to get out the pen and draw my own!
This is a conversation that I imagine my 5 year old self and I would have with each other.
That last pane is a scene from Peter Pan, and my younger self is imagining she is Peter Pan. Apparently that is not entirely obvious (apparently not everyone is as obsessed with Peter Pan as I am).
I think all the versions of my younger self would be happy with where I'm at now, but they'd all have something to call me out on! I'd get a lot of sass from my younger selves, and I'm sure they'd all be at least a bit skeptical that I really knew best. Which, I must say, is fair enough. I'm not so sure I do!
I had a lot of fun drawing this comic, and I hope to do some more at some point. Though as you can probably tell from the total lack of updates on my blog, I'm rather busy at the moment. It's full steam ahead with the PhD. I want to get it over and done with so I can move on with my life. And that is easier said than done, but hey, it is actually getting done!
Hopefully you'll be seeing more from me on here soon. Until then... stay frosty peeps.
I've been thinking a lot lately about younger versions of myself and what they would think of me now. So when one of my favourite web comic authors (and favourite tweeter) Kate Beaton posted a comic of her having a conversation with a younger version of herself, I felt inspired to get out the pen and draw my own!
This is a conversation that I imagine my 5 year old self and I would have with each other.
That last pane is a scene from Peter Pan, and my younger self is imagining she is Peter Pan. Apparently that is not entirely obvious (apparently not everyone is as obsessed with Peter Pan as I am).
I think all the versions of my younger self would be happy with where I'm at now, but they'd all have something to call me out on! I'd get a lot of sass from my younger selves, and I'm sure they'd all be at least a bit skeptical that I really knew best. Which, I must say, is fair enough. I'm not so sure I do!
I had a lot of fun drawing this comic, and I hope to do some more at some point. Though as you can probably tell from the total lack of updates on my blog, I'm rather busy at the moment. It's full steam ahead with the PhD. I want to get it over and done with so I can move on with my life. And that is easier said than done, but hey, it is actually getting done!
Hopefully you'll be seeing more from me on here soon. Until then... stay frosty peeps.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Welcome to Academialand
Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out with my some of my family (Dad, Mary and Pat) and we were watching a music video for some new up and coming female artist. My subconscious is a strange place, so I don't really know how to classify what a typical dream is for me or if this would qualify as one such dream. I had never heard of this artist before, but there's nothing surprising about that. It was a bit odd to be sitting around watching music videos with my Dad and Mary though, and not just because I haven't watched music videos on TV since like, the 90's. What was disturbing about this dream was actually my reaction to it when I woke up this morning: "Hmm, apparently I am doing queer readings of made up music videos in my sleep now." Welcome back to Academialand Dr. Jones!
I have been slaving away over my Neverending Methodology Chapter, and fell asleep last night expecting to have nightmares about it. But nope. Queer readings of made up music videos. And I'm not even touching queer theory with a ten foot pole!
The video was pretty typical for today's pop market, or so I imagine. Close ups of the singer heavily done up, her dancing in sexually suggestive ways with two men, her covered in rainbow coloured candy in a bathtub with a couple other women. Seems pretty run of the mill to me. The following queer reading of it came, as it always does, from a debate with Pat. As soon as the music video started up, I took one look at the heavily made up singer whom I had never heard of before and announced to the room that she was a lesbian. I proceeded to yell at the TV as she suggestively danced with two semi-nude men that this was completely nonsensical as she is clearly gay. Dad laughed at me and Pat baited me. Obviously neither of them were buying my story when she appeared, candy-clad, in a bathtub with a couple other women. This is just what the straight girls do these days. So I turned to Pat and yelled: "Dude! That chick is 100% dyke!" I argued that she had been advised to stay in the closet, hence the weird dancing with men scene, and that the candy-bath scene was her subtle signal to the lady lovin' folk that she's one of us. Obviously they weren't picking up on it; they weren't meant to. Geez!
It's the fact that the first thought I had this morning was that I had constructed a queer reading of this made up music video that bemuses and terrifies me. The fact that I'm now considering the pronouncement of "Dude! That chick is 100% dyke!" as a queer readings goes to show that I am well along the yellow brick road, leading away from sanity and towards Academialand. I have been resistant to going on this journey because, well, because I see it as a departure from sanity, and I feel my relationship to sanity is tenuous enough as it is!
But, what's a girl to do? Five years ago a younger, more naive version of myself decided she wanted to be an academic, and like it or not, I've now got to honour her wish. That is more harsh than how I actually feel... mostly. The me of five years ago who thought being an academic would be super-neat didn't place as much value on having a stable grip on her sanity as the current version of myself does. She was also completely unaware of exactly how crazy making doing a PhD is.
Truth be told, I don't mind academia. It's more that I don't want to be an academic. I don't want to be defined by my day job. I want to be more than the thing that pays the bills. My problem with academia is that it's not exactly a profession known for having work/life boundaries. It can't; it's thinking work. You can't structure your most inspired thoughts to occur between the hours of 9-5. It don't work that way! So the challenge is to find a way to engage in academic work without completely surrendering myself to it.
For you Eat, Pray, Love fans, Elizabeth Gilbert did a great talk on TED about this. And if you have 20 minutes, I highly recommend checking it out!
Everyone keeps telling me that once I have my PhD, it'll be worth the sacrifices. I'll be handed the keys to the kingdom or whatever. I'm a bit dubious of these claims, but I remain hopeful. At the very least, I'll have satisfied the desires of my younger self and can start satisfying the desires of my current self. Which may, on occasion, involve queering made up music videos.
I have been slaving away over my Neverending Methodology Chapter, and fell asleep last night expecting to have nightmares about it. But nope. Queer readings of made up music videos. And I'm not even touching queer theory with a ten foot pole!
The video was pretty typical for today's pop market, or so I imagine. Close ups of the singer heavily done up, her dancing in sexually suggestive ways with two men, her covered in rainbow coloured candy in a bathtub with a couple other women. Seems pretty run of the mill to me. The following queer reading of it came, as it always does, from a debate with Pat. As soon as the music video started up, I took one look at the heavily made up singer whom I had never heard of before and announced to the room that she was a lesbian. I proceeded to yell at the TV as she suggestively danced with two semi-nude men that this was completely nonsensical as she is clearly gay. Dad laughed at me and Pat baited me. Obviously neither of them were buying my story when she appeared, candy-clad, in a bathtub with a couple other women. This is just what the straight girls do these days. So I turned to Pat and yelled: "Dude! That chick is 100% dyke!" I argued that she had been advised to stay in the closet, hence the weird dancing with men scene, and that the candy-bath scene was her subtle signal to the lady lovin' folk that she's one of us. Obviously they weren't picking up on it; they weren't meant to. Geez!
It's the fact that the first thought I had this morning was that I had constructed a queer reading of this made up music video that bemuses and terrifies me. The fact that I'm now considering the pronouncement of "Dude! That chick is 100% dyke!" as a queer readings goes to show that I am well along the yellow brick road, leading away from sanity and towards Academialand. I have been resistant to going on this journey because, well, because I see it as a departure from sanity, and I feel my relationship to sanity is tenuous enough as it is!
But, what's a girl to do? Five years ago a younger, more naive version of myself decided she wanted to be an academic, and like it or not, I've now got to honour her wish. That is more harsh than how I actually feel... mostly. The me of five years ago who thought being an academic would be super-neat didn't place as much value on having a stable grip on her sanity as the current version of myself does. She was also completely unaware of exactly how crazy making doing a PhD is.
Truth be told, I don't mind academia. It's more that I don't want to be an academic. I don't want to be defined by my day job. I want to be more than the thing that pays the bills. My problem with academia is that it's not exactly a profession known for having work/life boundaries. It can't; it's thinking work. You can't structure your most inspired thoughts to occur between the hours of 9-5. It don't work that way! So the challenge is to find a way to engage in academic work without completely surrendering myself to it.
For you Eat, Pray, Love fans, Elizabeth Gilbert did a great talk on TED about this. And if you have 20 minutes, I highly recommend checking it out!
Everyone keeps telling me that once I have my PhD, it'll be worth the sacrifices. I'll be handed the keys to the kingdom or whatever. I'm a bit dubious of these claims, but I remain hopeful. At the very least, I'll have satisfied the desires of my younger self and can start satisfying the desires of my current self. Which may, on occasion, involve queering made up music videos.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Happy Oziversary!
Can you believe it? It's 3 years ago today that I rocked up on Australia's shores. Three years! I can hardly believe it. It doesn't feel like it's been three years. That's the longest I've lived anywhere in the past 8 years.
I remember my first day in Melbourne as if it was yesterday. The weather was much better than it is today. It was hot! I got off the plane from Korea (via Singapore) in my winter coat and thought I was going to die it was so hot! And I had like 8 bags. The university airport transportation people had to put me in a van of my own. I had made arrangements to stay in student accommodations at a hotel on Bell St in Preston. It was a long ways from everywhere and I spent my first day sorting through my luggage, getting my internet set up, and figuring out where the heck I was so that I could figure out where the heck I needed to go. Good times.
It wasn't long after I arrived here that I came to the conclusion I wanted to stay. There's been little question in my mind over the past three years that Melbourne is the place I want to call home on a permanent basis. But lately I am starting to question that. I still love Melbourne very, very much, and I can't think of anywhere else that I'd want to call home, but... I haven't been everywhere else.
Before I moved to Australia, I travelled pretty voraciously; Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe... But once I got to Australia, the travelling pretty much stopped. A trip to Queensland, a couple trips to Hawaii, and a trip back to Calgary have been it for me. For some people this may seem like a lot; but for me, it's remarkably not. For the most part, this has been because I'm poor. I don't have the money to take off on a trip to Sri Lanka, no matter how cheap the airfare gets. But another part of it is that I needed a break, especially since most of the travelling I did was on my own. After visiting an old, dear friend in Korea, and having such an amazing time getting to travel with someone, my motivation to make those little trips I'd normally take on my own - finances be damned - was hard to summon up.
Lately though, I've been getting itchy feet. This year I am faced with the reality that I will not be a student for the rest of my life, and given that I am living in Australia on a student visa, that means my future is pretty wide open. I've always said the plan is to stay on in Australia (and specifically in Melbourne) and get my permanent residency. That hasn't exactly changed (and no, there is absolutely no way that I will be moving back to Canada), it's more that I no longer have that intense desire to just stay put. Maybe I don't want to live in Australia forever. But I need somewhere to call home and I'd still it rather be Melbourne than anywhere else. Just maybe not forever and ever.
When I was in Hawaii I found myself thinking "I could live in the states, if I knew it was temporary and that I would then be returning to Australia." And since I've been back from Hawaii, I've been missing the vibe of being on an island that comes from being on an island that doesn't also double as a continent. It's true that I've made a good life for myself here in Melbourne, but I've become really aware of the fact that sooner rather than later the circumstances that form the foundation of this life (my PhD) will change. There's gonna be an earthquake, and I have no idea if it will be big or small.
Three years after moving here, I find that I am ready for a change. I don't know what I'll do when I finish my PhD, but I'm a firm believer that if you keep your eyes peeled, opportunities will come around that can lead you to some pretty unexpected places. That is, after all, how I ended up here in the first place.
I remember my first day in Melbourne as if it was yesterday. The weather was much better than it is today. It was hot! I got off the plane from Korea (via Singapore) in my winter coat and thought I was going to die it was so hot! And I had like 8 bags. The university airport transportation people had to put me in a van of my own. I had made arrangements to stay in student accommodations at a hotel on Bell St in Preston. It was a long ways from everywhere and I spent my first day sorting through my luggage, getting my internet set up, and figuring out where the heck I was so that I could figure out where the heck I needed to go. Good times.
It wasn't long after I arrived here that I came to the conclusion I wanted to stay. There's been little question in my mind over the past three years that Melbourne is the place I want to call home on a permanent basis. But lately I am starting to question that. I still love Melbourne very, very much, and I can't think of anywhere else that I'd want to call home, but... I haven't been everywhere else.
Before I moved to Australia, I travelled pretty voraciously; Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe... But once I got to Australia, the travelling pretty much stopped. A trip to Queensland, a couple trips to Hawaii, and a trip back to Calgary have been it for me. For some people this may seem like a lot; but for me, it's remarkably not. For the most part, this has been because I'm poor. I don't have the money to take off on a trip to Sri Lanka, no matter how cheap the airfare gets. But another part of it is that I needed a break, especially since most of the travelling I did was on my own. After visiting an old, dear friend in Korea, and having such an amazing time getting to travel with someone, my motivation to make those little trips I'd normally take on my own - finances be damned - was hard to summon up.
Lately though, I've been getting itchy feet. This year I am faced with the reality that I will not be a student for the rest of my life, and given that I am living in Australia on a student visa, that means my future is pretty wide open. I've always said the plan is to stay on in Australia (and specifically in Melbourne) and get my permanent residency. That hasn't exactly changed (and no, there is absolutely no way that I will be moving back to Canada), it's more that I no longer have that intense desire to just stay put. Maybe I don't want to live in Australia forever. But I need somewhere to call home and I'd still it rather be Melbourne than anywhere else. Just maybe not forever and ever.
When I was in Hawaii I found myself thinking "I could live in the states, if I knew it was temporary and that I would then be returning to Australia." And since I've been back from Hawaii, I've been missing the vibe of being on an island that comes from being on an island that doesn't also double as a continent. It's true that I've made a good life for myself here in Melbourne, but I've become really aware of the fact that sooner rather than later the circumstances that form the foundation of this life (my PhD) will change. There's gonna be an earthquake, and I have no idea if it will be big or small.
Three years after moving here, I find that I am ready for a change. I don't know what I'll do when I finish my PhD, but I'm a firm believer that if you keep your eyes peeled, opportunities will come around that can lead you to some pretty unexpected places. That is, after all, how I ended up here in the first place.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Ain't Nothin' But a G Thang
At the start of 2010 I decided that it would be a fun idea to get a year's weekend subscription to The Age. As I'm a student, I was able to do this for quite cheap. I'm not the kind of person who sits down and reads the paper over the weekend, so it wasn't long before I had amassed a person sized pile of unread news papers. The weekend subscription was not a good idea! I comforted myself, saying that it wasn't a full year's subscription; it would only last for the school year. But then the school year ended and the papers kept coming! What was I to do?
At first I tried to ignore them, telling myself that someone else in my apartment block must have gotten tired of stealing my newspaper and had decided to get a subscription of their own. I was able to delude myself with this for a few weeks, but then I had to face facts: my subscription has not run out. You know the saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
By this time I was much jaded about the quality of content in these papers, so now when they come I open them up in front of our recycling bins and immediately chuck all the sections I am never going to bother with. Basically, this leaves me with the Arts and Lifestyle sections (both of which I merely skim). My flatmate enjoys having these parts of the paper around because it gives her something to read when she's got 10 minutes to kill before heading off for a social engagement, and I like to cut articles out so I can pretend to myself that this is the kind of life that I am living. And so the pile of newspaper slowly starts it's growth to person-sized yet again.
Snark though I might, I must admit that sometimes the A2 is littered with awesomeness, as it was a couple of weekends ago (though today it was littered with cockroach). That paper a couple weeks ago had reviews of shops that I've been meaning to go to for over a year, a controversial piece on Midsumma, and an article explaining new fads in games. Now, I love playing games. My domino's set is one of my most cherished possessions, and my flatmate and I frequently spend the evening battling it out over the Scrabble board (she beats me every time, but I'll get her yet!) My previous flatmate and I had a few good rounds of Monopoly (we were much more evenly matched at that). Plus, the day I whooped Lady Cop's ass at Battleship will always be a treasured memory. So I was pretty psyched to read about what these new game fads were.
Of the five trends the article described, I can't say as I find much appeal in Cos Play or 'No Lights, No Lyrca'. But I definitely want to check out Settlers of Catan and geocaching. Secretly I am a total geography nerd and I dream of being one of those retirees who occupy their time and money scouring the globe to find their next geocach. I'd totally do it now, but it's definitely an activity that requires a car. So much like Goldie Locks, I came to the last fad and found that it was just right!
Secret Wars is really more of a spectator sport than a game, but I won't hold that against the article that informed me of it's existence. Basically, it's a draw off between two artists, generally of the graffiti genre. The idea is that each artist draws a picture of something awful happening to their competitor, and the best picture wins. When I read that, I was immediately hooked. After all, that is pretty much what I did with one of my friends for all of Chem 30 and the second half of grade 12....
It started off as my friend trying to slag me off, and soon turned into an elaborate story line about two super villains vying for domination over each other. We took turns drawing comic strips whereby we would do something horrible to each other in order to claim victory. Once we had completed our strip, we'd hand it over to the other who would then attempt to exact even more extravagant revenge. To this day I am convinced this has been the best use of my creative talents, ever. At no point is my PhD going to involve me and David Bowie running over our enemies with trains.
Unfortunately, my friend lost the first page of the comic (I'm sure she remembers this differently, but I don't lose anything, ever, so as far as I'm concerned any other explanation violates the laws of physics). I still have the second page, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and by that point our storyline was wearing pretty thin. I have produced a few solo venture comics since then, all as gifts for other people. The next time I decide to break out my mad stickman drawing skillz I'll be sure to keep a copy of my work for myself!!
Upon reading the description of this Secret Wars phenomenon, I discovered that the next event was only a week away. After checking out ticket prices, I fired off an email to Lady Cop, who I knew would be just as excited about this as I was. We booked our tickets and off we went!
If I had to sum up the event in two words, I was say it was "pure awesome!" It was set at Thousand Pound Bend, which really lent itself perfectly for this type of event. The DJ was phenomenal! He kept the hip hop pumping all through the night, which left me turning to LC every other song going "OMG! I love this song and I haven't heard it in years!" I'd forgotten how much good hip hop came out in the early 2000's. And anyone who doesn't love hip hop from the 90's probably doesn't have a soul. But let's not forget about the artists, both of whom were very talented and put on a great competition.
This event was the first round of the semi-finals and saw Scale face off against Pierre Lloga. They had 90 minutes to produce their work, using only black ink/paint on white.
That's Scale starting off picture. It was really interesting watching each artist's vision come to life right before our eyes. You've got no clue of what the end result will be when it starts out, and these two artists had quite different styles, so their works came together in very different ways.
At the start of the competition I was cheering for Pierre because I preferred his artistic style over Scale's. But I did have to admit that I thought Scale's concept was more interesting. Scale had Pierre locked up in an asylum, restrained in a straight jacket, whereas Pierre had Scale being chased by a crazy chainsaw murderer.
About half way through the competition Scale won over my support... by drawing Hello Kitty on the cell wall. I mean, you just can't compete with Hello Kitty. I also really liked that his concept was looking in on Pierre through a security camera in his asylum cell.
It was a close competition the whole way through though, with crowd support seeming to be favouring Pierre. Several times the MC came out to get us to cheer for our preferred artist, and to throw out prizes to whomever could be the most obnoxious in the crowd (it goes without saying that LC got a shirt).
As the competition came to a close, we counted the artists down to when they had to step away from the canvas. Both completed works were very impressive and involved quite a good effort at getting down to the nitty gritty details. It was obvious why they were both battling it out in the semi-finals! But it was up to the judges to decide who the winner would be...
The judges were unanimous: Scale was moving on to the next round! The crowd support remained strong for both artists, but Pierre's supporters cheered the loudest, giving him the accolade of crowd favourite. Both artists made an amazing effort and provided us with a very entertaining and enjoyable evening. LC and I are hoping to make it to the next round of the semi-finals and the grand final.
Here's the artists' finished works, decide for yourself who you think should have moved on to the next round:
Like I said, pure awesome! It certainly makes me want to break out the pencil crayons and get those pseudo-artistic juices flowing. But for the time being, my pencil crayons are strictly engaged in colour coding my data. One day I'll get back to my true talent of drawing stickman comics, one day.
At first I tried to ignore them, telling myself that someone else in my apartment block must have gotten tired of stealing my newspaper and had decided to get a subscription of their own. I was able to delude myself with this for a few weeks, but then I had to face facts: my subscription has not run out. You know the saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
By this time I was much jaded about the quality of content in these papers, so now when they come I open them up in front of our recycling bins and immediately chuck all the sections I am never going to bother with. Basically, this leaves me with the Arts and Lifestyle sections (both of which I merely skim). My flatmate enjoys having these parts of the paper around because it gives her something to read when she's got 10 minutes to kill before heading off for a social engagement, and I like to cut articles out so I can pretend to myself that this is the kind of life that I am living. And so the pile of newspaper slowly starts it's growth to person-sized yet again.
Snark though I might, I must admit that sometimes the A2 is littered with awesomeness, as it was a couple of weekends ago (though today it was littered with cockroach). That paper a couple weeks ago had reviews of shops that I've been meaning to go to for over a year, a controversial piece on Midsumma, and an article explaining new fads in games. Now, I love playing games. My domino's set is one of my most cherished possessions, and my flatmate and I frequently spend the evening battling it out over the Scrabble board (she beats me every time, but I'll get her yet!) My previous flatmate and I had a few good rounds of Monopoly (we were much more evenly matched at that). Plus, the day I whooped Lady Cop's ass at Battleship will always be a treasured memory. So I was pretty psyched to read about what these new game fads were.
Of the five trends the article described, I can't say as I find much appeal in Cos Play or 'No Lights, No Lyrca'. But I definitely want to check out Settlers of Catan and geocaching. Secretly I am a total geography nerd and I dream of being one of those retirees who occupy their time and money scouring the globe to find their next geocach. I'd totally do it now, but it's definitely an activity that requires a car. So much like Goldie Locks, I came to the last fad and found that it was just right!
Secret Wars is really more of a spectator sport than a game, but I won't hold that against the article that informed me of it's existence. Basically, it's a draw off between two artists, generally of the graffiti genre. The idea is that each artist draws a picture of something awful happening to their competitor, and the best picture wins. When I read that, I was immediately hooked. After all, that is pretty much what I did with one of my friends for all of Chem 30 and the second half of grade 12....
It started off as my friend trying to slag me off, and soon turned into an elaborate story line about two super villains vying for domination over each other. We took turns drawing comic strips whereby we would do something horrible to each other in order to claim victory. Once we had completed our strip, we'd hand it over to the other who would then attempt to exact even more extravagant revenge. To this day I am convinced this has been the best use of my creative talents, ever. At no point is my PhD going to involve me and David Bowie running over our enemies with trains.
Unfortunately, my friend lost the first page of the comic (I'm sure she remembers this differently, but I don't lose anything, ever, so as far as I'm concerned any other explanation violates the laws of physics). I still have the second page, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and by that point our storyline was wearing pretty thin. I have produced a few solo venture comics since then, all as gifts for other people. The next time I decide to break out my mad stickman drawing skillz I'll be sure to keep a copy of my work for myself!!
Upon reading the description of this Secret Wars phenomenon, I discovered that the next event was only a week away. After checking out ticket prices, I fired off an email to Lady Cop, who I knew would be just as excited about this as I was. We booked our tickets and off we went!
If I had to sum up the event in two words, I was say it was "pure awesome!" It was set at Thousand Pound Bend, which really lent itself perfectly for this type of event. The DJ was phenomenal! He kept the hip hop pumping all through the night, which left me turning to LC every other song going "OMG! I love this song and I haven't heard it in years!" I'd forgotten how much good hip hop came out in the early 2000's. And anyone who doesn't love hip hop from the 90's probably doesn't have a soul. But let's not forget about the artists, both of whom were very talented and put on a great competition.
This event was the first round of the semi-finals and saw Scale face off against Pierre Lloga. They had 90 minutes to produce their work, using only black ink/paint on white.
That's Scale starting off picture. It was really interesting watching each artist's vision come to life right before our eyes. You've got no clue of what the end result will be when it starts out, and these two artists had quite different styles, so their works came together in very different ways.
At the start of the competition I was cheering for Pierre because I preferred his artistic style over Scale's. But I did have to admit that I thought Scale's concept was more interesting. Scale had Pierre locked up in an asylum, restrained in a straight jacket, whereas Pierre had Scale being chased by a crazy chainsaw murderer.
About half way through the competition Scale won over my support... by drawing Hello Kitty on the cell wall. I mean, you just can't compete with Hello Kitty. I also really liked that his concept was looking in on Pierre through a security camera in his asylum cell.
It was a close competition the whole way through though, with crowd support seeming to be favouring Pierre. Several times the MC came out to get us to cheer for our preferred artist, and to throw out prizes to whomever could be the most obnoxious in the crowd (it goes without saying that LC got a shirt).
As the competition came to a close, we counted the artists down to when they had to step away from the canvas. Both completed works were very impressive and involved quite a good effort at getting down to the nitty gritty details. It was obvious why they were both battling it out in the semi-finals! But it was up to the judges to decide who the winner would be...
The judges were unanimous: Scale was moving on to the next round! The crowd support remained strong for both artists, but Pierre's supporters cheered the loudest, giving him the accolade of crowd favourite. Both artists made an amazing effort and provided us with a very entertaining and enjoyable evening. LC and I are hoping to make it to the next round of the semi-finals and the grand final.
Here's the artists' finished works, decide for yourself who you think should have moved on to the next round:
Like I said, pure awesome! It certainly makes me want to break out the pencil crayons and get those pseudo-artistic juices flowing. But for the time being, my pencil crayons are strictly engaged in colour coding my data. One day I'll get back to my true talent of drawing stickman comics, one day.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
To Jupiter, With Love
As I was watching Eat, Pray, Love on my flight back from Honolulu, I realized that this year is my Eat, Pray, Love year (and yes, I think that's an incredibly wanky thing to say). I am not goarging myself on food from any ethnicity, nor traveling to exotic locales, nor taking a particularly spiritual journey. What I am doing is focusing on me, me, and me this year. So perhaps it's my Exercise, Study, Dare year. My goals this year are to get fit, finish my PhD, and constantly challenge myself. Thus far, I am succeeding in all areas.
In the book, Love is really a central part of her whole journey. Likewise, challenging myself is really a central part of mine. I am pushing myself physically every day and challenging myself to change my eating habits. I am setting small, structured goals for myself with my PhD and this is keeping me accountable to the work I have to do, which in turn is getting done. And I am spending my downtime searching out opportunities to, metaphorically, fall off the horse some more. I want to spend my time doing new things and having awesome experiences. So that is the challenge I have set myself.
Midsumma, Melbourne's LGBT festival, is on right now, though it comes to a close tomorrow. There are heaps of different events put on in Midsumma; something for everyone, and heaps of cheese. I figure the best way to enjoy Midsumma is to go to an event that looks like it will either be completely terrible or completely awesome, depending on if the host can actually pull it off.
This year I picked Sci-Fi Speed Dating. I have no intention of getting into another relationship anytime soon, but I am interested in making new friends and it sounded like a fun way to meet new people. And while I'm not a hardcore sci-fi fan, I am a fan.
I had tried speed dating once before, many, many, many years ago, and it had been a total flop. There weren't enough people, the conversations were awkward, and I told one of my dates my Tanzania Truck Stop story (which, like any good story, is about poo). Let's just say my expectations for Sci-Fi Speed Dating were low.
When I arrived at the venue I was greeted by a sea of men. Not a good sign! But as I got a bit further in and started to look around I noticed that there was at least a handful of women there. Women with more than a few years on me, but still. I wouldn't be talking to myself all night. As the queue progressed to the registration desk I noticed that they were taking pictures of everyone. It turns out there is quite an elaborate system to this speed dating business when you've got more than 4 people involved! Along with getting your picture taken, you got assigned a number... and a complimentary drink. I gulped my drink down pretty fast as I started to realize I was soon going to have to make time pressured conversation with a bunch of total strangers.
Once everyone had been checked in, the women were separated from the men and both groups got sorted for our rounds of speed dating. There ended up being about 13 women, which was a pretty decent number. It at least gave us the chance to talk to everyone, which there was no hope of the guys being able to do. After a fair bit of organising chaos, the music started and we were off!
My first date was... awkward. I'm pretty sure we both took one look at each other and realized we weren't going to like each other, so it was just a matter of getting through a few minutes together. All I'll say is at least I tried! Though, in retrospect, given that we were at a sci-fi themed event, perhaps attempted conversation about science fiction would have been a better tactic. Oh well!
The evening improved from there. The rest of my dates were all perfectly able to hold up their end of a conversation, sci-fi themed or not. Even still, sometimes we'd just be getting into an interesting conversation when the music would start up again, other times when the music started it was like "oh thank god!" Somehow I don't think I'll be making use of the services of the woman who called me American then told me she's a psychic.
Because we were a small group, half way through we got to switch things up so that those who had stayed put and those who had moved around could go on dates with each other. After a good deal of confusion, we more or less took matters into our own hands and continued on with our dates.
By the end of the night, I had had a fair few awkward conversations, and some good reminders that just because someone looks interesting doesn't mean they will be. But I had also had some really nice conversations, and when the dates wrapped up quite a few of us stuck around and continued chatting for a bit. Our host, who I must say really did do an amazing job, came around with a prize bag and we all got to grab a prize. I got this gripper thing that I was having a great deal of fun with. One of the women was keen for us to all get together again, so we handed over our email addresses to her and now there are attempts at some sort of social gathering in the works.
One of the women actually lives quite near me, so we decided to take the tram home together. Our fearless organizer offered to give us a lift back into the city so we didn't have to catch multiple trams to get home, which was awesome! Unfortunately, I lost the gripper somewhere on my way home, either in the back of her car or at the bar. I hope that wherever it has gone, it has found a loving home.
All in all, the night was a success! I had a good time and met some cool new people that I look forward to catching up with again. It was fun because there was so little time to have a conversation with someone that it kinda took the pressure off. And I made it through the evening without resorting to my Tanzania Truck Stop story. It is definitely an experience that I would (and will) repeat.
In the book, Love is really a central part of her whole journey. Likewise, challenging myself is really a central part of mine. I am pushing myself physically every day and challenging myself to change my eating habits. I am setting small, structured goals for myself with my PhD and this is keeping me accountable to the work I have to do, which in turn is getting done. And I am spending my downtime searching out opportunities to, metaphorically, fall off the horse some more. I want to spend my time doing new things and having awesome experiences. So that is the challenge I have set myself.
Midsumma, Melbourne's LGBT festival, is on right now, though it comes to a close tomorrow. There are heaps of different events put on in Midsumma; something for everyone, and heaps of cheese. I figure the best way to enjoy Midsumma is to go to an event that looks like it will either be completely terrible or completely awesome, depending on if the host can actually pull it off.
This year I picked Sci-Fi Speed Dating. I have no intention of getting into another relationship anytime soon, but I am interested in making new friends and it sounded like a fun way to meet new people. And while I'm not a hardcore sci-fi fan, I am a fan.
I had tried speed dating once before, many, many, many years ago, and it had been a total flop. There weren't enough people, the conversations were awkward, and I told one of my dates my Tanzania Truck Stop story (which, like any good story, is about poo). Let's just say my expectations for Sci-Fi Speed Dating were low.
When I arrived at the venue I was greeted by a sea of men. Not a good sign! But as I got a bit further in and started to look around I noticed that there was at least a handful of women there. Women with more than a few years on me, but still. I wouldn't be talking to myself all night. As the queue progressed to the registration desk I noticed that they were taking pictures of everyone. It turns out there is quite an elaborate system to this speed dating business when you've got more than 4 people involved! Along with getting your picture taken, you got assigned a number... and a complimentary drink. I gulped my drink down pretty fast as I started to realize I was soon going to have to make time pressured conversation with a bunch of total strangers.
Once everyone had been checked in, the women were separated from the men and both groups got sorted for our rounds of speed dating. There ended up being about 13 women, which was a pretty decent number. It at least gave us the chance to talk to everyone, which there was no hope of the guys being able to do. After a fair bit of organising chaos, the music started and we were off!
My first date was... awkward. I'm pretty sure we both took one look at each other and realized we weren't going to like each other, so it was just a matter of getting through a few minutes together. All I'll say is at least I tried! Though, in retrospect, given that we were at a sci-fi themed event, perhaps attempted conversation about science fiction would have been a better tactic. Oh well!
The evening improved from there. The rest of my dates were all perfectly able to hold up their end of a conversation, sci-fi themed or not. Even still, sometimes we'd just be getting into an interesting conversation when the music would start up again, other times when the music started it was like "oh thank god!" Somehow I don't think I'll be making use of the services of the woman who called me American then told me she's a psychic.
Because we were a small group, half way through we got to switch things up so that those who had stayed put and those who had moved around could go on dates with each other. After a good deal of confusion, we more or less took matters into our own hands and continued on with our dates.
By the end of the night, I had had a fair few awkward conversations, and some good reminders that just because someone looks interesting doesn't mean they will be. But I had also had some really nice conversations, and when the dates wrapped up quite a few of us stuck around and continued chatting for a bit. Our host, who I must say really did do an amazing job, came around with a prize bag and we all got to grab a prize. I got this gripper thing that I was having a great deal of fun with. One of the women was keen for us to all get together again, so we handed over our email addresses to her and now there are attempts at some sort of social gathering in the works.
One of the women actually lives quite near me, so we decided to take the tram home together. Our fearless organizer offered to give us a lift back into the city so we didn't have to catch multiple trams to get home, which was awesome! Unfortunately, I lost the gripper somewhere on my way home, either in the back of her car or at the bar. I hope that wherever it has gone, it has found a loving home.
All in all, the night was a success! I had a good time and met some cool new people that I look forward to catching up with again. It was fun because there was so little time to have a conversation with someone that it kinda took the pressure off. And I made it through the evening without resorting to my Tanzania Truck Stop story. It is definitely an experience that I would (and will) repeat.
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